


They really should have expected this

by maggief



Category: Merlin (TV) RPF
Genre: Homophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-25
Updated: 2012-02-25
Packaged: 2017-10-31 17:45:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/346757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maggief/pseuds/maggief
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My first attempt at RPF. Originally from <a href="http://kinkme-merlin.livejournal.com/24606.html?thread=24316190#t24316190">this prompt</a> on kinkme_merlin: Colin and Bradley get spectacularly drunk and accidentally get married. But it's all a joke, right? Apparently not, for one of them at least. Can they still remain friends once it's all out in the open?</p>
            </blockquote>





	They really should have expected this

The curtains hadn’t been drawn properly, and the morning light was streaming through the gap straight into Colin’s eyes. Groaning softly he rolled over to turn away from the light, and rolled straight into Bradley who was sprawled across the other half of the bed. What the hell? Bradley was topless, much like Colin was, and Colin could only hope that he was similarly wearing boxers. Colin’s head was pounding as he stared at Bradley and tried to remember what the hell had happened last night. Tattoos? He definitely remembered some talk of tattoos - they had joked about getting matching tattoos last night. Of course, that still didn’t explain why they had ended up sleeping in the same bed, but Colin was willing to overlook that. Very slowly, trying his hardest not to wake Bradley, Colin attempted to examine his whole body, looking for a tell-tale flash of black ink... No sign of ink that he could see. Dear god, they hadn’t gotten tramp stamps had they? Colin leapt out of bed in a moment of panic. And that’s when he saw the used condom on the floor. And when his brain finally registered the small niggling detail that had been bugging him since he had woken up; there was a ring on his left hand. A wedding band. Oh fuck. 

Colin locked himself in the bathroom. Bradley continued snoring softly in the large white bed. After splashing his face with ice cold water, Colin shrugged on the t-shirt he had snagged from the end of the bed and sat down on the edge of the bath, trying to control his breathing. The facts so far weren’t looking great. Firstly, he and Bradley were practically naked in bed together (Colin was starting to suspect that those were Bradley’s boxers he had spied by the door, meaning that his friend and co-star was completely starkers under the sheets). Secondly, there was a used condom on the floor. Tentatively Colin felt his arse. Well, he hadn’t been fucked, but maybe it had been the other way round? Or maybe it hadn’t got any further than cheeky blozzers between friends. But, how did that explain the fucking wedding ring? Colin hadn’t checked, but he could only assume that Bradley was sporting an identical one. He really did need to check. 

Colin walked back out into the bedroom, to find Bradley still sleeping peacefully. He contemplated waking him for a second, and then thought fuck it. If this was all one big joke, or mistake, at least he could savour this moment for 10 more minutes. Silently, Colin slid back under the covers, and curled up around Bradley, breathing in the scent of his skin, and allowing the soft sound of Bradley’s snores to lull him back to sleep. Nobody needed to know, he could just have this moment.

Bradley felt Colin slide back into bed with him and continued to breathe slowly and evenly, careful not to move until he felt Colin relax down into a peaceful slumber. Bradley had already spotted the rings as well, and didn’t know quite what to make of them. It was unlikely that they’d got married yesterday, right? But he just couldn’t remember. That they’d had sex, Bradley was sure of. He could feel the familiar soreness, even though it had been a while for him. He’d been with a man before, back when he was in drama school when he’d had a boyfriend of sorts, although they hadn’t been very serious. Homosexuality amongst drama students wasn’t a particularly common occurrence and they had kept quiet about it. Drama kids were so dramatic about everything; Bradley (and Max) hadn’t wanted their private lives to be something else for them to fixate on. It had been the only thing that Bradley had disliked about his 3 years at uni, that even the tiniest things had to be blown up and obsessed over. The irony now was that it was no longer just his friends and coursemates who wanted to know all the minutiae about his love life, but the whole bleeding world apparently.

The longer he lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, the more he began to remember. Bradley was 99% certain they were legally married. Which, to be fair, shouldn’t be possible in this country. Two drunken idiots shouldn’t be able to get married on a whim, but they seemed to have royally fucked up this time. Actually, this whole nonsense had started last month, and it was Katie’s fault. The four of them had been having a pub lunch in celebration of her birthday (and really, who gets drunk on a Monday lunchtime?), when Katie had started quizzing Colin about when he was going back to Ireland.

“Col, what are you still doing in London, anyway? I thought you were going back home to see your mum now that filming’s wrapped?”

“Yeah, I’m going tomorrow actually. Just been crashing at Bradley’s, seeing some mates and stuff.”

Angel looked at him quizzically, “aren’t you staying at Bradley’s next week? He said he was throwing a vegetarian dinner party...”

“Yeah yeah, I’m home for a week, but then I’m back in London. Got an audition, for a film.”

After a brief discussion of the part, and the film, Katie had started ripping into him about the amount of time he was spending at Bradley’s; “really Colin, you’re a grown man, isn’t it time you got your own flat in London? You and Bradley may as well be an old married couple for the amount of time you spend with each other.”

At this remark Bradley and Colin had shared a laugh and a scoff. Yeah yeah, laugh it up, the old bromance that everyone was always going on about. But the girls hadn’t just laughed it off, and instead had kept going on about it, that in the end Bradley had just had enough.

“For fuck’s sake you two, would you just give it a rest?” Both Angel and Katie had shut up immediately, looking chastened, but Bradley hadn’t stopped there. “If you’re so adamant that me and Colin are fucking married already they why don’t we just pop next door and register for a fucking civil partnership?”

Bradley had known what he was saying, knew they were eating lunch in a pub practically next door to the council offices. And really, what was the harm? Registering an intent for a civil partnership meant nothing in legal terms, and Bradley knew that this extreme boldness would shut them both up. And so they had. They’d finished their drinks and Bradley had stormed off into the council offices, dragging Colin with him, with the girls following silently behind. And they’d done it. Had to show ID, but that was it. Didn’t even matter that Colin wasn’t an official resident in the district, he was still a UK citizen. The girls hadn’t said another word, and Bradley and Colin had been left in peace as the four of them spent the rest of the afternoon together.

That afternoon had been over two weeks ago now, and Bradley hadn’t given it a second moment’s thought. Until yesterday, apparently. Colin had got the film part, got the call at 10 o clock in the morning, when he and Bradley were sitting on Bradley’s sofa in their pyjamas eating porridge and watching Jeremy Kyle. 

“Well, fuck it then, let’s go down the pub to celebrate?”

Colin had eyed Bradley warily at this statement, but half an hour later, they had found themselves down Bradley’s local, raising a pint of Guinness each in a toast. When Bradley had been at uni, they’d had a few ‘all-day benders’; one at the end of each term, when all the assignments and coursework had been done. It had been horrific then, when he was 18, and it was horrific now he had inadvertently commenced on one again, as a grown adult who should know better.

By 3pm, they were well and truly drunk. Colin was an affectionate drunk, and he was leaning heavily on Bradley as they wandered past King’s Cross looking for another pub. They’d outstayed their welcome in the first one, probably after they started trying to throw tequila shots into each other’s mouths from across the table. However, as they’d staggered down Euston Road, they’d stumbled past the same old council offices they’d frequented on Katie’s birthday.

“Hey, hey Bradley. Bradley. This is where we got married!”

“We didn’t get maaaarried Cols. We got intended.” He was slurring his words.

“Intended? Like in Pride and Prejudice. I’ll be Mr. Darcy. You can be Elizabeth.” This comment sent Colin off into fits of (manly, thank you very much) giggles. 

Bradley shoved Colin playfully. “No, you idiot. Like. Like we intended to get married. Some other day. Like, a warning. Yeah, a warning.”

“Oh.” Colin seemed dismayed, “So why don’t we do it now then?”

“Do what now?”

“Get married.”

“Oh.” Bradley was quiet for a minute. “Ok then.”

And so they did.

Bradley only really remembers snippets after that. He isn’t sure where the rings came from, although they do look pretty cheap. He doesn’t know where they are now, although it is obviously a hotel (and not his own flat, he’s not that stupid). He knows they have an official document, and that he joked that they should get it framed. He knows they started drinking champagne after the ceremony, they had gone to the champagne bar in St. Pancras station, and stayed there for a few good hours. He remembers ribbing Colin that he should have been wearing a dress. He remembers talk about matching tattoos (that one had been Colin’s idea; “honestly Colin, they don’t let you get a tattoo if you’re drunk”). They had even debated booking onto the Eurostar and honeymooning in Paris. And really, what the fuck? Bradley distinctly remembered that conversation. Colin telling Bradley how much he loved Paris, and how ever since they’d started filming in France, he’d decided he wanted to have his honeymoon in Paris.

They had discussed the logistics and details as if they really were married. But they were. There were no girls to egg the prank along, nobody watching, nobody expecting anything. Just Colin and Bradley exceptionally drunk, and apparently exceptionally stupid. Bradley didn’t even think that Colin liked men, and although Bradley himself fully accepted he was bisexual, he’d always intended to marry a woman, have kids, be conventional. Not that there was anything wrong with being gay, Bradley would be a fucking hypocrite if he thought that. It was just that being gay, even nowadays, still had stigma attached, still had problems, especially for actors. He still liked women, he just liked men as well, and so why would he choose to make life harder for himself, what would be the point?

One thing Bradley did remember with startling clarity was the sex. With Colin. And ok, maybe he had thought about it once or twice before, coming hard and fast into his own fist, and then unable to look Colin in the eye the following day, flooded with guilt. But nothing he had imagined had come anywhere close to the reality. He’d seen Colin practically naked before, but having the full package laid bare before him... Colin was beautiful, all pale skin and lean muscle, contrasting perfectly with his mess of dark hair. And those cheekbones, fuck, how they’d been stained red with pleasure as Colin had pushed into him, excruciatingly slowly. Bradley wasn’t going to forget the look on Colin’s face in that moment for the rest of his life.

And that was the point really, wasn’t it? Bradley had thought that his feelings for his co-star had been one sided, had been wrong. It was wrong after all, to lust after your perfectly straight friends, to perve on them during costume changes because they didn’t know to suspect you, wasn’t it? But the look on Colin’s face, that fucking look, it had looked like reverence, like something completely beautiful was happening. Colin had looked happy, really perfectly happy. Was Colin hiding a secret, just as Bradley was? He’d never shown any sort of sign or given any sort of indication that he even liked men. Was he in denial? But if he was, how the hell was Bradley going to confront him about it? If they’d just had a drunken kiss, it would have been fine. They could have joked about it, and then maybe, tentatively explored each other feelings, tried again without the alcohol. Instead, they’d got married. And really, who the fuck does that?

Bradley groaned softly. His head was fucking spinning, and his stomach felt extremely delicate. 9am the morning of an epic hangover really wasn’t the time to be attempting to solve problems like this. Bradley just wanted to curl up around Colin, to mouth kisses down his spine (and wasn’t it a shame that Colin had put a t-shirt on?), and fall asleep sharing body heat. The real problem was that Bradley knew Colin, knew his mind, knew his reactions. Bradley had tested the waters before, not in relation to himself, but just in general.

On the way out of the new X-Men film; “Fuck me, Michael Fassbender is hot as. I wouldn’t say no.” A joke, but the truth as well.

Or, after the knights had posed for The Gay Times; “To be fair, with guns like that, who wouldn’t like Tom?”

Always casual, always teasing. But Colin had never responded, had only ever looked at Bradley with a hard glint in his eye. If Colin did like him, could possibly like men, he certainly wasn’t admitting it, not even to himself, obviously wasn’t comfortable with it. There was no way on earth that Bradley could casually suggest that maybe they try dating. Colin would just freak out, run away. For god’s sake, he’d already had a mini freak-out this morning, just at finding himself in bed with Bradley. Did that mean he should just forget it?

Dissolving a civil partnership really couldn’t be that hard, right? Maybe Bradley should just go back to watching Colin from afar, trying not to stare too long. Go back to shameful wanking in the middle of the night, Colin’s name lost on his lips. Was it even worth it? Bradley thought again about his own thoughts on gay marriage, how he’d always told himself he wouldn’t choose that. But maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t a choice?

Bradley could think of only one way that it might just work, that might just leave him with a chance, without screwing this all up entirely... At that thought, Bradley gave in to his hangover, and settled down against Colin’s side, letting himself fall back asleep, a soft smile on his lips, content.

By the time Colin next awoke the sun was no longer shining straight into his eyes. Nor was his brain beating a relentless tattoo against his skull. He felt almost normal, considering the colossal amount of alcohol they’d managed to see away yesterday. Cautiously he stretched his legs out, trying to surreptitiously feel whether Bradley was still in the bed as well. He wasn’t apparently. Steeling himself, Colin opened his eyes, to find Bradley staring straight at him from the chair across the room, fully dressed, newspaper lying ignored in his lap. Colin groaned and rolled over.

“Morning sunshine.”

“Feck off.”

Bradley chuckled softly at that, “it’s not that bad, although we have missed breakfast.”

At this casual statement Colin sat up in bed, looking at Bradley, completely dumbfounded.

“Not that bad? Not. That. BAD? It may have escaped your notice, but we seemed to have got married last night. MARRIED.” He held up his left hand to demonstrate his point.

“So you noticed that, huh?” Bradley looked down at his own ring, twirling it absently on his finger.

Colin just stared at Bradley incredulously.

“What the fuck James?”

“Ok, ok,” he held his hands up in a placating gesture. “It’s not great, alright. We did apparently get married last night. And yes, it is monumentally stupid. But, it’s not like anybody knows. We didn’t blurt it out a fan convention, we didn’t sing it from Westminster Bridge, we didn’t announce it on national television. It really could be a lot worse.”

Colin took a moment to consider this, rubbing a hand over his eyes, head bowed.

“Yeah, yeah ok. It could be worse. But still...” He let the sentence trail off into silence, staring out the window.

“Where are we anyways? This isn’t your flat.”

“Yeah, well spotted Sherlock.” Colin shot him a look. “I’m pretty sure we’re in that new hotel at St. Pancras, you know, the one they built in the old station?”

“Yeah. Guess so.”

Colin seemed to be descending into a world of his own. Bradley got up from his chair and sat down carefully on the bed next to Colin, placing a hand on his, thankfully clothed, shoulder.

“It’s really not that bad, Col. Let’s get out of here, go back to my flat. We can get some food, and then boot up my laptop, find out how to dissolve a civil partnership. It really can’t be that hard, yeah?”

He was treating Colin like a scared child, all soft voices and small movements. But it seemed to be what he needed. Bradley started to reconsider the idea that had been brewing in his head for the last couple of hours. Waking up married really seemed to have shook Colin, more than Bradley had anticipated, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to take this any further, didn’t think it would be fair on him.

* * *

They cleared out of the hotel room quickly, making sure to take the marriage certificate with them, they really didn’t need that to get into the wrong hands. Both left their wedding bands in place. Being so close to Bradley’s Camden flat, there was no point taking the tube, and they walked back in the unseasonably warm morning, not speaking a word.

Once they were inside, Bradley told Colin he was going to jump in the shower quickly, before they got the research going. Colin just nodded mutely and sat down on the sofa, head in his hands. Within ten minutes Bradley was back, no longer dressed in yesterday’s jeans and shirt, which had still smelt rather strongly of tequila. 

“Mate, get in the shower yeah? I’ll put some tea on, make some toast. Get Lucy booted up.”

“Lucy?”

“Lucy the laptop. Obviously.”

This ridiculous statement brought a slight smile to Colin’s lips. A small victory, Bradley thought.

Within half an hour of arriving back at the flat, they were both sat on the sofa, much like the morning before. Colin’s hair was still damp, and looking an absolute mess. Bradley thought he looked adorable, but kept that thought firmly to himself.

Twenty minutes later, things weren’t looking good.

Colin was quoting from the council website: “If you want to dissolve your civil partnership, you will need to apply to a court for a dissolution order. Your civil partnership must have lasted at least one year before you can apply for a dissolution. What the hell? A year? Britney Spears was only married for a day, why can’t we do that?!”

“No, look here, it says we can get an annulment, like it never existed.”

“No we can’t. Try actually reading it Bradley. Are you under 16? Are you already married? No? Yeah, didn’t think so. They we can’t get an annulment, genius. We’re stuck. We’re stuck married. For a year. A whole fecking year.”

Colin threw his empty tea mug across the room, watching it shatter against the far wall, startling Bradley.

“WHAT THE FUCK, MORGAN?” 

Colin looked up sharply at Bradley standing over him now. He’d never seen him get genuinely angry before.

“Yes, this is shit, and yes we’re married. But what the fuck? This is your fault, as much as it is mine, and that means you have absolutely no fucking excuse to come here, into my home and break my shit. What the hell is wrong with you?”

Colin just stared at him, silently, before shaking his head and burying his head in his hands again.

His reply was soft, muffled, broken. “I’m sorry Bradley, I’m sorry. I just... I wasn’t prepared for this.”

Bradley sat down next to Colin, sighing, and nudged their knees together.

“It’s alright Col. It’s alright. It’s a little bit inconvenient. It means we won’t be able to get married to anybody else in the next year. I don’t know about you, but I certainly wasn’t planning on it any time soon.” This remark solicited a small huffed laugh from Colin. “Also, if you die, I think it means I get all your cash.” At this, Colin did laugh. Bradley smiled. “Apart from that though, yeah it’s a bit shit, but it doesn’t have to mean anything else, doesn’t have to affect anything else. Then, in a year’s time, you can cite my absolutely atrociously unreasonable behaviour. You can tell the court I was out getting drunk every night, spending all our money, bringing home different men and women, sometimes more than one, into our home. And we’ll be divorced before you can blink. Job done.”

Colin was outright smiling at the end of Bradley’s speech, and Bradley could see the tension leaving his hunched over shoulders.

“Job done?”

“Yeah.”

“So we really don’t have to tell anyone?”

Bradley shook his head, “not a soul.”

Colin breathed out a heavy sigh of relief and leaned back against the sofa, closing his eyes.

“Although...”

Colin cracked an eye open suspiciously, “although what, James?”

“Well, we could have some fun with it?” At Colin’s questioning eyebrow (and really, he must have learnt that from Richard) he continued. “I mean, we should probably tell the girls at some point, right? We’ve done something colossally stupid, they do kinda deserve to be able to take the piss out of us for it... It’s only fair, really. I’d want to be able to do the same. Plus, if we keep it a secret, and then they find out somehow anyway, it’d be a hundred times worse.”

“Yeah, I can see your point. But how is that going to be any fun for us?”

“Ahh, now for the beautiful part. So we have the certificate, and we have the rings, right?”

“Right...”

“And we really are legally married.”

“Yes...?” Colin couldn’t see what Bradley was getting at.

“So we tell them it’s for real.”

“For real?”

“Yeah, we tell them that we really did mean to get married, that we weren’t drunk, that we’ve been seeing each other for months. Let them stew over it for a week or two, have them kicking themselves over missing it, and then, boom. Joke’s on them. That way, they won’t be able to take the piss out of us for it. At first, because if we really were serious, it would be fucking harsh to laugh at us, and then after, we’ll just be able to laugh right back at them for believing us.”

“Jesus, Bradley. You can’t be fecking serious. That’s ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous? Or genius...?”

Colin laughed. “Dear god.” He laughed some more.

And then, to Bradley’s complete surprise, he agreed. “Yeah, go on then. Prank of a lifetime, right?”

“Right.”

Bradley didn’t think his grin could get any wider. Phase one, complete.

Lunch with Katie and Angel a few days later was uncomfortable, to say the least. They’d rehearsed their lines, Colin had even gone so far as to write a little script for them, but really it hadn’t gone well.

“Well cheers!” Katie was already on her second drink by the time the boys arrived.

“Yes, cheers! Well done Colin for getting that movie part!” Angel chimed in.

Colin and Bradley exchanged a glance.

“That’s actually not what we’re celebrating...”

“Not the only thing,” added Colin.

They looked at each other, and then simultaneously held out their left hands for the girls to see, matching rings clearly displayed. They were met with complete silence. The silence turned awkward.

“Sorry, what” Katie broke the silence.

“We got married.”

“Yeah sorry, I’m still not getting this.”

“Bradley and I got married. Last week.”

“Married married?”

“Yup.”

“Last week?”

“Yes.”

“To each other?”

“Yes... Who else would we get married to?”

“Anybody else?!”

“Somebody female?” Angel had finally found her voice. “I mean, you aren’t gay. Neither of you are gay. You’ve never shown the slightest interest in a member of the male species. So why would you marry each other?”

Colin shot Bradley an indecipherable look, and opened his mouth to reply. But no sound came out. Bradley jumped in instead.

“Well actually... I dated a guy when I was in uni. His name was Max. We were together for 8 months.”

Colin looked more stunned that the girls did. Nobody spoke, so Bradley continued, trying to recall Colin’s script.

“We’ve been seeing each other since last year, we actually got together at Colin’s birthday party. And yes, we’ve kept it quiet. But can you blame us? Imagine what the fans would be like if they found out we were dating... They’re bad enough with all the bromance. And we weren’t sure where it was going, how serious it was. But I think by this summer we knew that this was it, that we really were serious.”

Bradley trailed off, looking at Colin imploringly, not wanting to have this “discussion” all by himself.

Colin cleared his throat self-consciously. “Once we realised how serious we really were, we tried to tell you...”

“What? No you didn’t. I think we would have remembered that.”

Colin didn’t seem inclined to speak again so Bradley answered. “When we were at the pub, for Katie’s birthday. And we went to register an intent for a civil partnership. We took you along with us, how much more obvious did we need to be?”

Both girls looked completely nonplussed for a moment, before Katie replied.

“Don’t lie to us James. That was just a joke. You were angry, not in love, we’re not stupid.”

“Yeah, we’re not falling for this boys.” 

Bradley rolled his eyes, and dug out the backpack he had brought with him for precisely this purpose. He pulled out the marriage certificate and passed it over to the girls.

“You two are married...”

“Really married?”

“Yes”, they both replied, twining their hands together. 

“Oh, wow.”

“So last month, at the council offices. That was you coming out to us?”

“Err, yeah.”

“Jesus. Colin, I’m ashamed of you!” Katie sounded angry. “I expect this kind of emotional constipation from Bradley, but really I expected better from you! Dragging your friends to a council office is not a sufficient way of coming out!”

Both boys had the wisdom to look suitably chastened although indignant at the same time.

“And while we’re talking about expecting better,” Angel chimed in, “why didn’t you invite us to the ceremony?”

Shit.

Bradley improvised.

“We didn’t invite anyone actually. Colin’s parents. They’re Catholic, you know. And my mum, she always asks me when I’m going to find a nice girl, settle down. If we invited anyone, we’d have to invite our parents. And then, it wouldn’t be what we wanted anymore. It wouldn’t be about us. It would be about them, and their prejudices and preconceptions. We wanted to get married because, well because we wanted to get married. Not to prove a point, not to impress anyone, not to please our parents. So we did it just by ourselves, for ourselves. So no, we didn’t invite you. But we’re here now. You’re actually the first people we’ve told.”

Angel and Katie looked touched by this last statement, and didn’t berate them any further. Colin remained oddly quiet, shooting heavy glances at Bradley every so often. That speech of Bradley’s had been touching, had been moving. In fact, it was the most romantic thing he’d ever heard come out of Bradley’s mouth (scripted lines aside). And, for what? Just one big massive prank. No one had ever said anything like that to Colin before, to him, about him. And it was just an act, a farce, a joke. Something burned hot and shameful inside of him. He wanted someone to say words like that to him, and actually mean them. To have someone who wanted to marry him just because it would join them together for the rest of their lives, not due to pressure or expectations. He wanted someone to feel that way about him, for someone to want him as their own, and not want to share him, or that moment with anyone else. And what did he have instead? Bradley fucking James, pulling “the prank of a lifetime”.

The most shameful part really was how close this all hit to home. It wasn’t that Colin wanted that from someone, it was that he wanted it from Bradley. And now he had it, had everything he barely even let himself think of in the dead of night. He had Bradley waxing lyrical about their love, he had Bradley’s hand linked to his own, he had Bradley’s wedding ring on his finger. What he didn’t have was reality. What he didn’t have was honesty. What he didn’t have was truth. All he had was a farce of a marriage that he was trapped in for the best part of the next year. And how on earth was he going to keep his real feelings a secret for that long, with Bradley acting like this? Bradley was a good actor after all, and Colin didn’t think that he himself could match him in the long run. Colin would slip up and reveal the truth long before Bradley got bored of the pretence. And only god knew what blowout would follow that revelation. And he really didn’t want to find out.

Colin had barely uttered another word the whole evening after their initial conversation with the girls. Bradley had tried to coax more out of him, often asking him direct questions, but he was fobbed off with vague answers, leaving Bradley confused, and the girls whispering about whether they’d had an argument or not.

By the time they got back to the flat Bradley was tired, and his head was pounding. He wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed, and forget about everything for the night. Colin however had other ideas. As soon as they had walked through the door, Colin turned to Bradley, visibly steeling himself.

“Is it true?”

Bradley sighed. “Is what true?” He had no idea what Colin was referring to, considering he’d sat there in complete silence for most of the evening.

“Did you really... Date a guy? At uni?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” Colin’s face was a blank mask, and Bradley had no idea how to interpret this question.

“What do you mean, why? For the same reasons anybody dates someone; I liked him, I wanted to go out with him.”

“Yes, but why?” Colin’s brogue was thicker than usual, but it wasn’t the accent he was having trouble understanding.

“Why what, Colin? I don’t understand what you’re asking me.” Their voices were raised slightly, and it wasn’t doing Bradley’s headache any favours.

“Well I don’t understand why you would date a man!” 

Bradley stared at Colin incredulously for a moment, before turning without a word and heading into his bedroom, leaving Colin alone in the living room.

At least the girls weren’t here now, to watch them go to bed in separate rooms, no words of comfort or love spoken between them. Colin didn’t quite know what to make of Bradley’s revelation, and thoughts of what it meant kept him awake well into the night.

He’d meant what he’d said to Bradley, he just didn’t understand why he would date a man. In the acting world it was tantamount to career suicide. And Bradley had made the decision when he’d still been at drama school, before he even had an agent. Even nowadays there were still certain agents that wouldn’t touch actors who were openly gay. It was a nightmare to find them work, without typecasting them as the token gay character in any film or play. Why had Bradley risked it? He had admitted himself that the relationship had been relatively short-lived, so why? If it had got out, if his coursemates had known, it could well have jeopardised his whole future career before it had even started. Nobody would have wanted a mythical hero and king who was a fairy, after all. If you wanted to be a serious actor, it just wasn’t the done thing.

What riled Colin the most was that for Bradley, it had been a decision, had been a choice. Bradley himself had admitted he was bisexual, so why would he choose a man over a woman, why would be open himself up to all the associated discriminations and limitations? Colin had struggled with his sexuality for years, trying to learn how to come to terms with it, how to accept himself. He had no problem with homosexuality in general, for other people to be gay, but for himself, and his chosen career, it was not something he could ever really be at peace with. Colin didn’t want to be gay, and he didn’t want Bradley trying to show him that it could be possible. It was a lie, and it would only ruin his career in the end.

It made Colin angry, anger that had been leaking out into his conversation with Bradley earlier. If you could really call it that, it was more of an argument Colin supposed, although one without a resolution. Never go to bed angry, wasn’t that what they said? This marriage was off to a brilliant start, Colin thought sardonically. He tossed and turned until the morning light started to creep in around the edges of the curtains, eventually falling into a restless and unsatisfying sleep.

* * *

The next few weeks were spent in near silence. Colin stayed living at Bradley’s flat, in the spare bedroom. It was convenient but they were like strangers. They lived together, but they barely spoke, barely even interacted at all. Colin almost never saw Bradley in the mornings, and suspected that he often waited in his room until after he heard the front door shut behind Colin. Colin himself did much the same in the evenings, making sure to be firmly inside his room before Bradley came home. 

Both were kept busy with work related endeavours, as well as catching up with friends. Apart from a few Merlin-related publicity events they spent no time together at all. It made Colin sad and thankful at the same time. Thankful, because it left him less exposed to the chance of outing himself to Bradley, sad because the close and playful friendship they once shared seemed to have disappeared entirely.

For his own part, Bradley couldn’t believe Colin, a man he thought he’d known so well, had sprung such a surprise on him. Who would have guessed that Colin was a homophobe? No wonder he’d looked so freaked out after realising that they had slept together. Bradley couldn’t understand why on earth Colin had agreed to this debacle. If the very thought of homosexuality was abhorrent to Colin, why would he consent to pretend to be so? Well, Bradley thought, he was an actor after all, pretending to be someone he wasn’t was an everyday occurrence. Bradley wished he had ripped up that damned certificate that morning in the hotel, and pretended the whole thing had never happened. Colin was completely avoiding him and, as far as he could tell, hated him. Hated talking to him, hated being near him, hated the very thought of him. It made him sad, but mostly it made Bradley tired. He was tired of trying not to run into Colin even though they shared the same living space. He was tired of pretending that it didn’t hurt that Colin found him so despicable.

However, now November had passed, the charity moustaches had been shaved off, and Bradley came home early one evening, catching Colin in the living room, telling him they needed to talk.

Bradley had no bloody clue what they were doing anymore. He’d thought this would be a good idea, something to laugh about in years to come. How wrong he’d been. They’d completely ruined their friendship, irreparably, as far as Bradley could tell. Although, he wasn’t sure he wanted to be friends with the Colin that had been revealed by this whole situation. Wouldn’t it just be more sensible to bail out now? Surely they could tell the girls it was all a joke now, and bow out gracefully? Colin could move out of his flat, and Bradley could set about picking up the pieces of his life. They’d originally planned to continue with the pretence until just after Colin’s birthday, certainly before filming restarted in March. It was all well and good Angel and Katie believing they were really married for a couple of weeks, but Bradley wasn’t sure how the knights would take it, and had thought it best that they should never know. 

However, Katie had asked Bradley what he and Colin were doing for their first Christmas as a married couple. Bradley had frozen, completely unprepared to even bluff an answer for such a question. Luckily Katie had misinterpreted his silence.

“It’s alright Bradders, I’m not inviting myself along! I figured you’d want to spend it alone, just you and Colin. Angel and I just thought you might like to have a pre-Christmas Christmas celebration, just the four of us. What do you say? You’re always going on about how you’d like to cook your own Christmas meal. Well, we can have it at yours, and then it can be a practice run for the real day. Although I don’t know what you’re going to feed Colin instead of turkey, you don’t suppose we could fool him into thinking it was made out of tofu, do you?”

Bradley had laughed weakly at that, and then somehow found himself agreeing to host a dinner for the four of them the week before Christmas. Now he had to break the news to Colin.

“I saw Katie today.”

Colin looked up from the paper he was reading. “That’s nice. How is she?”

“Oh, you know. Same old interfering nuisance. She suggested that the four of us had our own pre-Christmas celebration. Here, at the flat.”

Colin just looked at him blankly for a second, before replying. “Ok.”

“Ok?”

“Well, they are our friends, aren’t they? Unless you’ve discovered that they’ve been out murdering babies on the second Tuesday of every month?”

Bradley almost smiled in relief; there was that dark sense of humour that Bradley had come to know and love from Colin over the years. But no, he reminded himself, there was nothing to smile about anymore when it came to Colin and himself.

“Well alright then. We said the 18th, if that’s ok with you?” Colin nodded his agreement. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure there’s something suitably vegetarian for you.”

“Thanks Bradley.”

“Alright then.” The conversation was awkward and stilted. “I’ll be going to bed then.”

“Goodnight.”

“Yeah, night”. And then Bradley fled.

The days leading up to the dinner passed in much the same manner as the ones previously; harsh silences, punctuation by closing doors and meals for one. Both men ignored each other, until the night before, when Bradley broke the silence.

“I think... We need to try... We should practice.”

“Practice? Practice what?”

“Practice kissing...”

Colin barked out a hollow laugh in response. “You’re having a fecking laugh. I’m not doing that.”

“Oh come on Colin, let’s be realistic here. Katie and Angel are coming round here, tomorrow. For all intents and purposes, they think we’re married. And guess what, married people kiss. They kiss, they touch each other affectionately, they actually fucking like each other, and can look each other in the eye. If we can’t do those things tomorrow, Angel and Katie will know something is up. So either we try some fucking acting, or we may as well call this whole thing off right now.”

To be honest, at this point in time, Bradley was kind of hoping Colin would go for the latter option. He had no idea why Colin was still invested in this scam. For himself, he wasn’t sure either. At first, it had been a means of getting closer to Colin in a sexual context, to try to break down some of his walls and barriers. However, now Bradley knew that aim was completely impossible, that Colin was not the man he thought he was. Some part of Bradley though was still clinging on to that hope. The hope that somehow the Colin he had come to know and love over the years was still there, that this judgemental homophobe wasn’t the real mark of the man that was Colin Morgan. That was why he couldn’t suggest they give up yet, why he was now suggesting they practice kissing to make sure they would be believable tomorrow.

Colin looked stricken. Yes, the thought of kissing him must be so horrific, thought Bradley snidely, but didn’t voice his remark. And yet, Colin capitulated.

“Yeah. Yeah, ok.” Colin took a few deep breaths and stepped closer to Bradley.

 _“fuck”_ Colin’s expletive was no more than a ghost of breath across Bradley’s lips, but he heard it nonetheless; it stabbed deep into his heart. Clearly this was paining Colin greatly. 

Bradley closed his eyes, determined to imagine it was somebody else he was kissing. And wasn’t that ironic. For months and months, years really, Bradley had imagined kissing Colin, and now that he actually had the chance, he wanted nothing more than it to be someone else, anyone else. He didn’t want to kiss a Colin that was so disgusted by the very thought of him. 

Colin’s eyes were wild when they parted, hair standing up in every direction from where Bradley had run his fingers through it. He looked thoroughly shaggable, was Bradley’s first thought, before he quickly stamped out any of that sort of thinking. Slowly he backed away from Colin a few steps, trying to breathe deeply and regain his equilibrium. He’d never imagined kissing Colin sober would be that amazing. It had been pretty fucking fantastic drunk, but that whole night was blurred around the edges, lost into the haze of the alcohol. Bradley’s mind right now was a clear as ever, and fuck, how he desperately wanted more of that.

They stared at each other for several heartbeats, neither moving nor speaking, until Colin finally turned tail and fled into the safety of his room. He couldn’t remember a single thing from the “wedding night” with Bradley. That amnesia had been his safety net, his comfort. The one thing he wanted had been there under his fingertips, under his lips, and he couldn’t remember a single thing about it. But that had been a good thing, a reassurance. Colin was certain that if he could remember it, it would have ruined him, would have left him helpless in the face of his own resistance, completely unable to stay away. And now, now he could remember with perfect clarity what it felt like to kiss Bradley. The soft, yet slightly chapped quality of his lips, his warm hands on his hip, in his hair, the whisper of his breath mingling with Colin’s own. Every single detail was burned into his memory, taunting him with what he could never allow himself to have.

It took a long time for both men to get to sleep that night, each completely ignorant of the other’s turmoil.

* * *

The girls arrived early, leaving no time for Colin or Bradley to dwell excessively on the evening before them. Colin opened the door to them, and offered them both a glass of wine, whilst Bradley quickly disappeared back into the kitchen. Neither man touched the other. Colin sat on the sofa chatting amiably with Angel and Katie about what they had been up to since they last saw each other. However, Colin was distracted, only giving half an ear to the conversation. The rest of his attention was with Bradley, in the kitchen, his mind running at a million miles an hour, waiting for Bradley to make his move and show the girls their relationship. After an agonising 10 minutes, Colin decided to take matters into his own hands.

“More wine?” he asked, standing up as he spoke. Both nodded in response, and Colin moved into the kitchen.

He knew the girls, Katie especially, would be unable to resist this opportunity to “catch” them on their own, knew that they would venture into the kitchen within the next minute or so. Indeed, he had left this option open to them, by failing to return with the promised wine. And so, for a moment, Colin just let his instincts and desires take over. 

Bradley was standing at the stove, stirring the cranberry sauce when Colin entered the kitchen, and he looked round over his shoulder to see who it was.

“The girls will be in here in a moment...” Colin told him, giving Bradley the well-rehearsed excuse for his following actions.

He walked up behind Bradley, and then looped his arms around his waist, allowing his fingers to trail across Bradley’s abdomen, feeling the strong muscles there through his shirt. Bradley stiffened at the touch, before turning around so he and Colin were face to face. Slowly Colin brought their lips together, pressing Bradley back against the oven, one hand reaching up to caress his neck, his jaw, and toy with the tendrils of hair at the nape of Bradley’s neck. Bradley responded by tightening his arms around Colin’s back, wedding ring displayed prominently, waiting for the girls to enter. They did not disappoint, and the next thing Colin was aware of was the noise of giggling coming from the doorway, and the absence of Bradley’s lips.

Bradley announced that dinner was ready, and stepped swiftly away from Colin.

Bradley sat through dinner, wildly uncomfortable with the proximity to Colin, hating how it felt like he was on show. Colin, for his part, seemed to be using all of his acting abilities. He smiled softly at Bradley, rested his hand on his leg, touched his arms, his hands, and gave away small kisses like they were no more trouble than breathing. The girls seemed to love every moment of it, Katie looked like the cat who had got the cream, smug smile firmly in place.

“So boys,” she practically purred, “what are you plans for Christmas? Will you just be staying here? Or going to Devon, Ireland?”

Colin had absolutely no idea what had possessed him to agree to this. All the affectionate touches that Bradley had deemed necessary were absolutely killing him. They were everything he had dreamed about; being so casual and familiar with Bradley, kissing him whenever he felt like it. He didn’t know how much more of this evening he could take, how much longer he could spend in Bradley’s presence pretending that everything was ok. Pretending that he wasn’t one short step away from either dropping to his knees and unzipping Bradley’s trousers, or leaving and never returning. This was fucking torture. And now the girls were asking him how they were going to spend their first Christmas together. As far apart as possible, was than an acceptable response? Probably not.

Luckily Bradley’s brain seemed to be functioning at a higher cognitive level than Colin’s, and he replied smoothly.

“Well, we’ll be spending Christmas itself here, as I said before. But then we’re heading down to Devon to see my family for a couple of days. We’ll be back in London for New Year.”

Angel turned towards Colin, concern heavy in her eyes. “Have you still not told your parents Colin?”

Colin had no idea what to say.

* * *

The evening deteriorated from there. Colin retreated back into the silent shell of a man that he’d been during the pub date with Angel and Katie, all traces of affection completely gone. Bradley tried valiantly to act as though nothing was amiss, but he’d clearly recognised the signs. Colin had shut down, obviously he’d reached his threshold for the evening, and there was no bringing him back now. Angel and Katie picked up on the renewed tension in the air, and the rest of the evening was tense and stilted. They didn’t stay late.

“Thank you for dinner Bradley, it really was lovely.”

“Yes, thank you. You really have nothing to worry about on Christmas day, it was all delicious.”

Bradley thanked the girls warmly, and bid them goodnight.

The door closed behind Katie and Angel with a resounding thud, echoing through the silent flat.

“So that went well...” Bradley’s voice was heavy with sarcasm.

“It was a fucking disaster.” Oh, so he was speaking now, Bradley thought sardonically. 

“Yeah, no shit Sherlock.” Bradley turned to head towards his bedroom, another headache brewing at his temples.

“Bradley...”

“What Colin? What is it that you want from me?!” Bradley’s anger and frustration were bubbling to the surface, and the only person to take it out on was Colin. Not that he didn’t deserve it, Bradley thought darkly.

“I...” But no words came out.

Bradley had really had enough. “I get it Colin. Trust me, I wish I didn’t, but I do. You haven’t been able to look me in the eye since I told you about Max, since I admitted to being bisexual, to liking men. You’re a homophobe. And guess what? You might find me disgusting, but I find you equally despicable. I don’t understand how someone can be so judgemental in this day and age. I don’t understand it at all.”

Bradley was at the door to his room before Colin spoke.

“No. YOU don’t understand. It’s not... you’re not... you.” Colin didn’t seem to be able to form any words.

“Save it Colin, I don’t need to hear what you’ve got to say to me. You’ve already made your opinion perfectly clear.”

“No, I haven’t. That’s my point.” He paused, the only sound in the room his ragged breathing, sounding as if he had just run a mile. “I’m gay Bradley, I’m fucking gay.”

“What?” Bradley could not have heard Colin correctly, he could have sworn he’d just said that he was gay...

“I’m gay,” he replied, and then he broke down completely.

Bradley just stood there, frozen in shock as Colin stared at him, waiting for some sort of reaction as the seconds ticked by around them. After what couldn’t have been more than a minute, but felt like an eternity, Bradley turned and walked back into his room, only to emerge a second later with his jacket. He spoke not a single word to Colin, but walked straight past him not even sparing him a glance, and out the front door.

Colin sank down onto the sofa in shock over what he had just admitted and Bradley’s reaction, and didn’t move again. He sat there and stared at the door, willing it to open and for Bradley to walk in. But it didn’t happen. Bradley didn’t return, and at around 3am Colin fell asleep. When he woke, there was sunlight streaming through the large living room windows. The flat was just as empty as when Colin had fallen asleep, the only difference being that the blanket that usually lay across the end of Bradley’s bed was covering Colin where he had been asleep on the sofa. That meant Bradley had returned, but promptly left again. Bradley clearly didn’t want to see Colin, when Colin wanted nothing more than to sit down and talk to him, to get him to listen and really understand. Colin sighed heavily, determined not to dwell on it. But it was no use; he couldn’t get Bradley out of his mind. He wondered where he was, and what the hell he was thinking about Colin and his revelation right now.

Colin sat there wrapped in Bradley’s blanket, as the dull winter light slowly moved across the horizon, until he was swathed in darkness once more. Bradley had not returned, and Colin’s sadness lay heavy inside him, leaving him hollow and cold. This was Bradley’s flat, even though Colin had always lived there whenever he needed to; Bradley had never objected, never told Colin he should have his own place in London instead. That’s what friends were for. As Bradley’s absence became more and more conspicuous with its length, Colin had to accept reality. Bradley wasn’t going to come back until Colin was gone; he wasn’t welcome here anymore.

As dark afternoon turned into night, Colin roused himself from his lassitude and packed his bag. He didn’t feel comfortable spending another night here, when Bradley must surely have been waiting for him to leave in order to be able to come back and re-inhabit his own home. Although he left many of his belongings behind, he made sure they were all neat and ordered within the guest room, the room which he could no longer call his own now. Although he knew it was futile waiting around to talk to Bradley, and would be even more ridiculous to ring him, he wanted to talk to him, explain himself, apologise. In the end, he wrote a short letter, that came nowhere near expressing how he really felt, but it was all he could give voice to. He replaced Bradley’s soft worn blanket on the end of his bed, with the letter on top, and left in silence.

* * *

That night, after Bradley had stormed out of the flat, he’d gone straight to the nearest open bar. He’d been angry at Colin, absolutely livid. What the fuck?! Colin had given him so much fucking grief about him being bisexual, and the little shit was gay himself. What the hell was that all about? Was he one of those gay men that hated bisexuals, thought that they should choose? Or did he just find the idea of Bradley himself with another man repulsive? 

Bradley had stewed there in his own anger, unable to puzzle Colin out, getting steadily and steadily drunker, until finally, at 3am, the bar had closed. The tube was definitely shut for the night by that time, and although it was deathly cold, with a few flakes of fresh snow attempting to fall from the sky, Bradley decided to walk home rather than getting a taxi. Colin was asleep on the sofa when Bradley got in, and though his anger was still bubbling inside him, his walk had sobered him somewhat. Colin looked so small and vulnerable sleeping there that Bradley had no desire to wake him up for a confrontation right then. Instead he retrieved the old blanket from his bed, and laid it gently over Colin’s softly snoring form.

In the morning he woke early, and went straight to Katie’s. None of his other friends even knew he was seeing anyone, and although he wouldn’t be able to explain all the details to Katie, nor did he feel it was his place to do so, he could nonetheless, express some of his hurt and pain to someone who could understand.

It was barely even eight in the morning, and the sun had only just risen when Bradley rang Katie’s doorbell. She answered the door looking sleepy and dishevelled in rumpled pyjamas. Bradley could only smile wryly at her.

“Bradley...” she stifled a yawn, “what on earth are you doing here?”

He glanced around before he spoke.  
“Colin...” he didn’t know what to say really. “Colin and I had a fight.”

It was the only explanation he could give that she would understand. He must have looked suitably downtrodden and pathetic, because Katie cooed sympathetically before ushering him inside.

After instilling him on the sofa with a fresh cup of warm tea, Bradley still hadn’t spoken another word, and so Katie tried to coax the information out of him.

“Come on Bradley, tell me what happened. I knew something wasn’t right at dinner the other night, there was a lot of tension between the two of you.”

Bradley took a sip of his oversweetened tea before speaking.

“He... I...” the words didn’t seem to want to come. He took a deep breath, and just let it all out. “I think he regrets getting married, and now he feels trapped, and angry. I’m angry too. We’ve barely been speaking. I don’t know what to do Katie, it’s such a big fucking mess.”

Katie looked at him softly, sympathy clear in her eyes.

“Oh Bradley. I’m so sorry.”

They talked it out some more, Katie trying to tease apart Bradley’s real feelings on the matter, trying to get him to open up.

“I love him. It’s fucking ridiculous, but I do. But now I think we’ve ruined everything by trying to be married that we can’t even be friends any more. He’s my best mate, and I’ve lost him.”

And Katie didn’t know what to say to that. They spent the rest of the day curled up on the sofa watching mindless tv, sharing the same blanket, but nothing more than that. Bradley figured his life could have been so much simpler if he could have fallen for Katie, rather than the other dark haired Irish cast-mate of his.

“Bradley, it’s nearly eleven o clock at night, you need to get home, or Colin will be asleep before you get there. You know what they say; never go to bed angry.”

Bradley sighed heavily, and thanked Katie for her kindness and understanding. Not once had she mocked him, and he knew she was right now, he really did need to speak to Colin, sooner rather than later. When Bradley returned, after midnight, he found nothing out of place in his flat, and no sleeping Colin on the sofa. All he found was a letter penned on a plain piece of paper, obviously stolen from his printer, addressed to him. He recognised the untidy, almost incomprehensible, immediately.

> _Bradley,  
>  There is so much I want to say to you, and yet I can never seem to form any words at all. All I can say is that I’m sorry. Sorry for how I’ve treated you, and sorry for the ruin I have made of our friendship. I agreed to pretend to be married to you out of the selfish desire to see what it could be like, to be married to another man, if only I was a different person living a different life. However, and I know this is no excuse, it made me angry, sad, and ashamed with myself. Sad that I could never allow myself to have that life, angry and ashamed that I wanted it at all. It was these resentments that made me take my anger out on you, made me shut you out, and I’m sorry, you didn’t deserve that. I was never disgusted by you, and I never judged you. I was only ever disgusted with myself. You made me realise everything I couldn’t have, and you made me jealous.  
>  You’re the best friend I’ve ever had, and I’m only sorry that it had to end like this. I can only hope that one day you’ll be able to forgive me.  
>  Love Colin._

Bradley wept silently as he read Colin’s letter. Although the other man had barely written anything at all, Bradley could practically feel the sadness pouring off the page, waves upon waves of self hatred and despair. Bradley had been thoroughly shocked when Colin had admitted that he was gay, but it clearly wasn’t a revelation to Colin himself. When he had blurted it out Bradley had assumed that it was a recent realisation, that it was something he was struggling with only since this whole marriage debacle had started, possibly brought on by the fact of them having had sex on the wedding night. But this letter, this letter hinted at a much greater well of self-understanding than Bradley had given Colin credit for, and it was clearly something Colin had been struggling with for years, although something he had never truly come to terms with.

Bradley thought back to all the conversations he had had with Colin on the matter. How he had shut down when the girls had asked if his parents knew about him and Bradley, knew if he was gay. How he couldn’t comprehend why Bradley could happily date a man, when Colin was in so much turmoil over allowing himself the same. The absolute agony in his eyes when they had kissed. Bradley hadn’t been able to identify the strange emotion in Colin’s eyes at the time, and in his later anger, he had attributed it to disgust. And while he thought that perhaps he was right, that there was disgust in Colin’s eyes, as the letter said, it was directed at himself, and not at Bradley. The overwhelming emotion that Bradley was certain he had seen now, was sadness.

Bradley slept badly that night, tossing and turning, mind unable to stop thinking about Colin, and where the hell he could be.

Colin hadn’t returned by the time Bradley woke up the next morning, and he obviously knew that Colin couldn’t have gone to Katie’s, as he had been there himself. He wouldn’t be at Angel’s either. Firstly, it was improbable because Colin and Angel really weren’t that close. Obviously Colin was charming and adorable to everyone he met, but he and Angel had never really jelled much beyond that; Bradley had always assumed it was because the two of them had the largest age gap between them. Katie had always seemed to be the glue that held the younger cast members together. Secondly, Bradley knew that Angel was out of town for Christmas with her boyfriend. However, Colin had many other friends who weren’t members of the Merlin cast, so he could just as easily have been crashing with one of them for the last couple of days. Bradley tried not to think about Colin too much, wanted to give him some time to himself; he didn’t want to force Colin to return to his flat if he didn’t want to be there, but he desperately wanted to talk to him.

Bradley went running to stop himself from sitting on his sofa all day, wrapped in his old blanket, trying not to convince himself that it still smelt faintly of Colin. He braved the busy madness of Oxford Street to finish his Christmas shopping, well aware of the fact that he had already bought Colin a gift back in October, before they had even accidently got married. He found himself dwelling more and more on thoughts of Colin, even though he was staunchly trying to avoid the topic in his mind. Was Colin going to come back at all? The letter had asked for Bradley’s forgiveness, but was he going to try to seek it? Or had Colin already assumed that it would not be forthcoming? He wanted to call Colin, tell him to come back so they could talk. Bradley didn’t hate him, and there was nothing to forgive now he knew the truth. Although he wished Colin would have told him sooner (he never would have suggested this stupid bloody marriage farce if he’d known the true extent and turmoil of Colin’s feelings), he could understand why he had never said anything. It obviously wasn’t something Colin had ever planned on telling _anyone_ , and while sometimes Bradley felt that he wasn’t included in the anyone where Colin was concerned, this was clearly one of the times that he was.

On Wednesday evening he decided a quick text to Colin wouldn’t go amiss; _Happy Mid-winter Solstice :) hope you’re ok, B x_. Ever since he had taken on the role of Merlin, Colin had become much more interested in Arthurian legend, and aspects of the “Old Religion”, so Bradley knew that if they were on normal speaking terms, Colin would have appreciated the text. He didn’t know whether the kiss was too much, too suggestive, but he always ended his messages with a kiss; stopping now would probably be more suggestive. Bradley was not surprised when he received no reply, but still didn’t press the matter.

Truth be told, he was still very unsure of where he stood in this whole situation. Six months ago, if you’d asked him, he would have said it was impossible that he and Colin could fall out on such epic terms that they wouldn’t even be speaking to each other, wouldn’t be communicating in some way. And yet, here they were. Maybe Colin was ignoring him because Bradley had avoided him at the weekend. He could admit (to himself at the very least), that he had been a colossal dick in the way he had reacted to Colin’s revelation. In his defence, he had been completely gobsmacked; it had been the last thing he had expected to come out of Colin’s mouth. He shouldn’t have just left without a word, should have stayed there with Colin, but even in hindsight, he’s not sure that would have been such a great idea.

He had been such a volatile mix of angry and shocked, that he would have been more likely to say something that he’d regret rather than anything worthwhile. Of course, now he’d had the time to calm down, talk things over with Katie, and really sort things out in his mind, his prospects weren’t exactly shining. He was in love with his best friend, really quite irretrievably.

Something had broken inside Bradley when he had thought that Colin hated him because of his sexuality, and he still hadn’t entirely reconciled the fact that it wasn’t true. He did know however, that the fact that Colin was instead judging only himself with those harsh, homophobic standards, made Bradley feel even worse. He could put someone else’s comments out of mind, to some degree, no matter how much they hurt. However, if it were your own mind? There would be no escape from that kind of hatred. Bradley couldn’t even begin to imagine what it must be like inside Colin’s head, how he could live his life in that way. It made his heart ache for Colin, made him want to hold him tight and let him see that everything would be alright. But then again, maybe it wouldn’t?

Bradley lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep with this constant whirlpool of thoughts going round and round inside his head. Shortly before 4am, he fell into a restless and unsatisfying sleep, images of Colin crying on his sofa when he had left, flitting repeatedly across the landscape of his dreams.

Katie called the next morning, but Bradley sent it straight to voicemail. He knew she would be asking whether he had made up with Colin, and Bradley really had no answer for that. He didn’t even know where the man was, let alone what his feelings towards Bradley were at the moment. Bradley’s thoughts seemed too big to keep inside his head, all of them clamouring to be heard at once, and sitting alone in his empty flat wasn’t doing him any favours. Quickly looking up the train times, he caught the next train back down to Devon, knowing that his mum’s endless chatter and endless cooking, would go some way towards calming him down.

He kept his wedding ring firmly in his pocket, and nowhere else. Last he had seen, Colin had still been wearing his, at least. Bradley spent the next couple of days helping his mum to decorate the house for Christmas, although she flatly refused any of his help in the kitchen.

“Mum! I’m good, I swear. I cooked Christmas dinner for Col, and Katie, and Angel! Just last week. And no one died!”

His mum just laughed at him. “I don’t care what you say dear, or how good you think you are. All I can see is my fifteen year old son with singed eyebrows, and a house full of smoke. It took months for the smell to come out of the curtains, I’m not having you do that again!”

Bradley laughed in return, trying, and failing, to scowl at his mother. Instead, he took himself off outside for a walk in the lightly falling snow. Guess it was going to be a white Christmas after all, he thought, as long as the snow stuck ‘til the next morning.

Later that evening, after their family traditional dinner of fish fingers and mince pies, Bradley sat on the sofa, watching the tv, but paying no attention to what was going on. All he could think about was Colin, as had been the case all week.

“I’m off to bed now darling, make sure you turn the Christmas tree lights off when you’re done. And go to bed soon, or Santa won’t come,” she admonished jokingly.

Bradley laughed quietly, “will do mum. Goodnight.”

“Night.” His mum looked at him softly before turning and heading upstairs. She could sense that something was wrong with Bradley, but he would rather walk over hot coals before volunteering information about his screwed up love life to his mother.

Drawing his phone out from his pocket, he scrolled down through the contacts list until he came to Colin’s name. He hovered over the name for a moment, deliberating, before finally pressing call. He would have called Colin normally, and clawing some normality back into their relationship seemed like a good idea. Anyway, they really did need to stop avoiding each other and actually talk, which was hard to do without someone making the first move.

“Hello?” Bradley’s heart leapt into his throat at the sound of Colin’s voice. 99% of him hadn’t been expecting him to answer.

“Hey Col, it’s me.”

“Bradley...” He let the name drop off, not quite a greeting, or recognition; something softer, almost regretful.

“You alright? I didn’t know where you’d gone...”

“I went home.”

“Oh right.” The conversation was stilted, and awkward. Bradley didn’t really know what to say. “We need to talk.”

“Bradley...” more pleading in his tone this time.

“I don’t hate you ok? I just think... We really need to talk.”

“Yeah. Yeah, ok. Not now though, not while I’m at home. I can’t... talk about that here. When I’m back in London? I’m back next Sunday”

“On your birthday? Won’t you be busy?”

Colin let out a tired sigh. “No, kind of just want to ignore it this year, I’m not really in the mood for making a fuss.”

Bradley could understand that sentiment entirely; after the fuss the girls had made over them and their “marriage”, he would understand Colin, intensely private as he was, wanting to be left alone for the rest of his life. Bradley just hoped he wouldn’t be included in that, although if Colin was suggesting meeting up on his birthday, Bradley guessed that to some extent at least, he wasn’t.

“Sure, I’ll see you then?”

“Sure. Goodnight Bradley.” His voice sounded smaller, lonely. It made Bradley want to hug him, although he was fairly sure that would be rejected.

“Col? Merry Christmas, yeah.”

Bradley could hear the small smile on Colin’s lips as he replied, “yeah, Merry Christmas.” There was a brief pause, an intake of breath in the silence, as if Colin wanted to say something else, and then he hung up.

After the phone call had ended Bradley crawled behind the tree to turn off the lights. However, he didn’t leave the room after that, but stayed there in the darkness under the tree, softly breathing in the scent of pine and trying not to think about Colin.

Colin sat in the dark on the other side of the Irish Sea, listening to all the voices of his extended family down in the kitchen below. Even that brief conversation had shook him, forced him to face all the things he had been avoiding, namely Bradley himself, and all the associated feelings Colin held for him. He rested his arms on his knees, letting his head hang down, holding back bitter tears. How could he join in downstairs, being happy and cheerful, when his whole life, his whole existence was a lie? Colin stayed, hiding in the darkness of his childhood bedroom until well after the house had gone quiet, before dragging himself to bed.

Bradley feels hollow and restless for the whole of Christmas, listlessly moving from one room to another, unable to settle down in one place for too long. He walks the dog, for probably longer than is socially acceptable, and drinks all the beer in the fridge. It’s not enough, and it doesn’t help him to forget. 

Bradley heads back to London on New Year’s Eve. He tells his family he’s going to a party, that he’s going to see his friends, but it isn’t true. He sits in the dark in his flat, not even bothering to turn on the lights once darkness falls in the mid-afternoon. Come midnight he’s still sitting there, and he watches the fireworks on the tv. Even though he can’t see any actual fireworks from his flat, he can hear them rumbling through the night like thunder, and the sky flashes with brightness like the city is being bombed. For a moment he feels whole, connected to the whole city, and it makes him happy. However, once the fireworks have finished and the night is silent and dark once again, he can only think that today is now Colin’s birthday, and he’s never felt further apart from the man than he does now; he has no happy sense of connection any more.

He snatches a few hours of sleep in the early morning, but his mind won’t stop whirring long enough for him to really wind down. By 7am he gives up on the pretence of sleep and downs a quick strong coffee, before heading out for a run. He sees one other person so early in the morning, after half the population have spent the night drinking heavily. From the way the man is sweating profusely, despite the cold of the morning, and breathing heavily despite his slow pace, Bradley suspects the man is victim to a New Year’s keep-fit resolution. He wonders how long it will last. Probably longer than Colin’s cordiality, he thinks sourly. Determined to banish all such thoughts from his mind, he picks up his speed, until he is as sweaty and breathless as the other morning jogger. It clears his mind for a few blissful minutes, and for that he is grateful.

By the time Bradley is home and showered the sky is an ominous grey colour; it matches his misgivings for the day, about how this conversation with Colin will turn out. It starts raining around midday, the water coming down in heavy sheets, louder than the fireworks of the previous night. Colin turns up an hour later, completely drenched to the skin; Bradley has a towel, and some old tracksuit bottoms for Colin to wear. Trust Colin not to bring an umbrella. He gives Colin some privacy to strip off his wet outer layers, and change his sodden jeans for Bradley’s worn trackies. He makes tea, milky with a generous helping of sugar for himself, green for Colin. 

When he returns to the living room, Colin is curled up on the sofa, looking like he belongs there. Something twinges uncomfortably inside Bradley.

“There you go,” he says, handing him his tea, “happy birthday.”

Colin smiles in return, uttering a soft thank you.

It’s pure torture being in the same room as Colin, wanting to kiss him, but not knowing whether it’s allowed, whether it’s permitted. It’s probably not. 

Bradley tries to dispel the awkward silence, “So, we need to talk?”

“Yes. Yes, we do.”

They lapse into silence again, both of them sipping at too-hot tea.

Colin decides it’s probably up to him to start this conversation.

“I’m sorry.”

Bradley looks up sharply. “No, Col, you-“

“Just listen, ok?” Bradley nods. “I’m sorry. I am. I’m sorry I never told you that...” he swallows heavily, and looks away, out the window at the pouring rain. “That I’m gay.” He huffs a small laugh at that, short and cynical. “It’s funny. I’ve never told anyone those words before. Not until you... You. I think I knew something like this was going to happen the first day I met you. Something inside me just knew. Here, here is the man you’ve been looking for. He’s going to screw everything up for you, my son. That’s what the voice inside my head told me, and goddamn, it was right.”

He laughs again, turns back to face Bradley, staring at somewhere around his left collarbone.

“I...” Bradley starts, but Colin shakes his head to tell Bradley it isn’t his turn to talk yet. He needs to get all this out now, or he may never be able to.

“What I said in that letter is true. This...” he finds himself unable to say the word marriage. “Whatever this is between us, it was a moment of weakness, a moment of curiosity. I wanted to know, I had to know, what it was that I was missing out on, what I chose to miss out on. And it is a choice, and it’s my choice. It was selfish of me, to use you like that, just so I could know. Just so I could keep those moments. So I’m sorry, for being selfish, and for using you. I’m sorry Bradley.” He looks Bradley straight in the eye, the first time he’s done so since he entered the flat. And all Bradley can see there is sadness.

“Colin...” he reaches out a hand and Colin backs away, turning towards the window again. Bradley retracts his hands. Continues speaking anyway, knowing that Colin is listening, even if he can’t look.

“You didn’t use me. I wanted what you were offering, I wanted you. I still want you...” He lets that lie in the air between them, not quite begging, but close.

“And that’s why I was using you. Because you’re asking for something I can’t give you.”

“But I’m not asking for anything!” Bradley cries, exasperated. “I just want you.”

“And that’s exactly what I can’t give you”, Colin replies ruefully.

Silence follows.

“So this... Never?”

“I’d break your heart and mine, Bradley. I can’t do that.” As he’s talking, he slips off his wedding ring and sets it down on the coffee table in front of him. Bradley hadn’t even noticed he’d been wearing it. He wonders absently if he’s been wearing it all this time they’ve spent apart, or if he slipped it on especially to come here today. Bradley isn’t sure which scenario he would prefer.

He does however know when he’s lost a fight, a trait he learnt from playing Arthur all these years now perhaps.

“So where do we go from here?” His voice is timid, lost. He can’t imagine a life without Colin in it. Can’t imagine life on set where he and Colin aren’t thick as thieves. 

“Friends?” Colin smiles that slow smile he has, that reminds Bradley of the sun hiding behind the clouds; it’s just a hint of the real beauty of Colin’s smile, but it’s beautiful none the less, especially on a day filled with rain.

Bradley smiles back. “Yeah, friends.”

The lapse into silence again, this one slightly more comfortable than the last, until Bradley breaks it.

“So, as a friend. I bought you a Christmas present. Or birthday present. I’m not sure which. Both?”

“Well it is my birthday... And I wants it”, he deadpans, voice twisting.

Bradley laughs, “alright Gollum. Just wait here a sec, I’ll go get it.”

Colin laughs, a proper laugh this time. “Yesss precious.” 

Bradley returns a moment later with a small velvet box, such as the kind you may find an engagement ring in. That is, of course, not what is in this box. He hands it over, blushing faintly.

“I found them months ago, in an antiques shop. Don’t ask me what I was doing in there! But, they seemed perfect for you...”

Colin opens the box to find two golden cufflinks, flawlessly carved in the shape of tiny, twisting dragons. They’re beautiful. And he can’t accept them.

“Bradley... I can’t.”

“Don’t be stupid, of course you can.”

But he can’t. Something about the box, about the cufflinks (and they really are perfect), scream “COLIN, I’m in love with you.” He knows that’s what they mean to Bradley, what it would mean for him to see Colin wear them. And so he can’t accept them. He can’t encourage that.

“I’m sorry Bradley. They feel like a promise of some kind, one I’ve just told you I can’t make.”

From the way Bradley’s face falls, Colin can tell that he’s at least partly right. Bradley had wanted to mark Colin as his in some way, after he knew Colin would never wear the ring in public.

Colin sighs and sets the small box back down on the table.

“I should go. I’m sorry Bradley.”

He leans over and kisses Bradley lightly on the lips, just once. So fleetingly that Bradley isn't sure whether he imagined it. Then Colin is up from the sofa, collecting up his wet clothes, shrugging on his coat.

Bradley leaves his ring on the coffee table next to Colin’s and heads into the kitchen, unable to say goodbye.

That's it. They're over.

Colin pockets both rings and lets himself out. He leaves the cufflinks where they are.

Bradley didn’t notice that both rings were gone until later on that evening, when he sank down onto his sofa to watch the new series of Sherlock on BBC1. He searched under the coffee table, and even wandered back into the kitchen to see if he had absent-mindedly moved them there; but there was no sign of them. Colin must have taken them, and what the hell did that mean? The cufflinks still sat there on the table, taunting him, and he threw them across the room in a fit of pique before settling down under his blanket. He wasn’t sure what was more disconcerting: the fact that he fancied Sherlock more than Irene Adler, or the fact that really the only person he was thinking about was Colin.

He didn’t see Colin again for almost two weeks. Months ago they had bought tickets to go see Hamlet together at the Young Vic. He’d heard nothing from Colin since his birthday, but they had agreed to be friends, right? And wasn’t going to the theatre something friends did together? He dropped Colin a quick text when he woke up that morning asking if he was still up for Hamlet that evening, before heading out for a run. By the time he got back there was a text waiting for him from Colin: _Yup, sure thing. Meet you there at 7? C x_.

Bradley felt lighter after Colin’s reply, at least he wasn’t ignoring him. Although, he wasn’t sure if a public setting was the best place to meet Colin for the first time since they had called off their “marriage” (and what a joke it was to call it that, but Bradley really had no better word to describe it). At least, he supposed, it would put them both firmly in the “friend” setting, and meant that Bradley was less likely to make an embarrassing faux-pas in reference to his continuing, and now inappropriate, feelings for Colin.

In an attempt to keep it casual, and definitely in the friend zone, Bradley dressed down as much as possible; scruffy worn jeans, and an old hoodie. He thought that maybe he was taking it a stretch too far, but when Colin turned up he was dressed in an almost identical outfit, albeit plus one manky beanie hat pulled down low over his ears. Bradley had to suppress the urge to laugh.

After walking down some dark corridors, which Bradley could only assume was some pretentious affectation at the behest of the director, meant to “get them in the mood” of the play, or some such bullshit like that, he and Colin took their seats and struck up a quiet conversation, always mindful of nearby fans, until the play started.

In Bradley’s mind, the play couldn’t end quickly enough. Michael Sheen was brilliant, as always, in fact most of the cast was pretty impressive, but what the hell kind of drugs was the director on? Sheen would be an excellent Hamlet wearing a bin bag and spouting his lines standing on a street corner like a common prostitute, but the director had decided to make the production a show in and of itself, which completely overshadowed the actors themselves. At the interval Bradley kept his thoughts to himself. Colin’s only comment was that he couldn’t help but remember Sheen as Tony Blair, although for this production Bradley thought that maybe that would help.

Once the play was over and they were outside in the freezing London night, Bradley spoke, “well, that was interesting...” He let the comment just hang there. Surely Colin hadn’t thought that was any good, but he didn’t want to risk offending him if by some miracle he had...

“Understatement. What the feck was going on?”

“I have no idea mate”, Bradley replied, relieved that they were both on the same wavelength. “I saw Hamlet at the Globe last year, and at the end, once everyone was dead, the whole cast got up to do a merry jig. I can’t decide now whether that was better or worse than this...”

“Hamlet is pretty fucked up anyway, why on earth did the director feel the need to set it in a mental institute?!”

Bradley laughed at the outrage in Colin’s voice. “I just don’t understand why they needed to reuse the dead characters, in costume. It’s bloody theatre for god sake, they could have just washed the make-up off and pretended it was a completely different actor, like everyone normally does.”

“Well yeah, I guess the whole point was that it was all in Hamlet’s head though. And if you’re fucking loopy, people probably do come back from the dead and pretend to be someone else.”

“All those poor GCSE students are going to be so confused when it comes to their exams, talking about how they really enjoyed the bit where Ophelia came back to life.”

“Hamlet and Zombies; a modern production”, Colin replied, laughing.

As the two of them walked along laughing over the awfulness of the production, whatever had been curled up tight inside Bradley started to relax; it almost felt normal.

* * *

Bradley didn’t see Colin after that. He left London and went to film the movie, the winning the part of which had started this whole mess in the first place. Bradley sent him a few odd texts, not as many as he normally would, but whenever something funny or interesting popped up that he knew Colin would appreciate, he sent it his way. Colin replied sometimes, and sometimes sent texts of his own, usually random comments about the creepy girl in the lighting crew who had started following him around asking him to “show her some of his real magic”. 

Bradley kept busy with running and football, and reading the few scripts his agent sent his way. Nothing jumped out at him, and nothing felt right. He helped a couple of friends out, and even went back to his old drama school to watch the 3rd year students do their showcase. He could remember the awful combination of stress over finding the right pieces, relief once you had something workable, and then the ensuing fear of actually having to perform it in front of agents, in the hope of wowing one of them with your amazing acting ability. That last part always came out as slightly sarcastic in his head, some days he still couldn’t believe that someone thought he was good enough to actually pay him for doing what he loved.

Before he knew it, it was no longer dark at 4pm, and he fingers didn’t feel like blocks of ice every time he forgot his gloves (which was inevitably at least 5 times a week). And then suddenly the now familiar industrial brown envelope appeared through his letter box. Stamped BBC SHINE it was filled with all the requisite information about the filming of the new series of Merlin, which was to start next week. Actors were reminded to have their hair cut (or in the case of Eoin, to leave his hair well alone), and make sure to be in Cardiff at least the day before the first read-through was scheduled. 

Last year Bradley had shared a flat with Eoin, while Colin had stayed by himself. When they were filming last summer there had been some talk of Colin and Bradley sharing this year instead. Although Bradley had enjoyed immensely the addition of basically a whole 5-a-side team to the cast, he’d still enjoyed his quiet moments (and laugh out loud moments) with Colin, and had wanted to make sure they didn’t lose that. However, in the disastrous last couple of months, the idea hadn’t been mentioned once, and now Bradley realised he was due to be in Cardiff next week, with nowhere to live, and no one to live with.

Scrolling through his phone contacts, he thought about calling Eoin, and then Colin, to see what both of them were doing. However, he was pretty sure that each would have sorted their shit out weeks ago, and Eoin at least, would wonder what had happened to make Bradley leave it so late. He was pretty sure that Colin’s answer would be no, and he didn’t want to repeat the cufflinks fiasco.

He ended up calling instead the estate agent who had let the flat he and Eoin had lived in last year, and luckily the guy had a double bedroom flat going in the same block, that he’d been trying to rent for a while. Even though he didn’t need the extra room, it wouldn’t hurt, and it would make it easier for early morning pick-ups the more of the cast lived in the same building. Bradley wondered briefly if Colin would be in the same building as well, but didn’t dare ask now in case it scared the other man off. He’d find out soon enough.

He’d had an awkward lunch mid-February with Katie who, it turned out, had assumed he and Colin had made up rather quickly after their pre-Christmas fight. 

“So, haven’t seen you since before Christmas... How are you and Colin? How was it with your family?”

Bradley sighed heavily, not really wanting to have to admit this to Katie. It made him feel like a failure, like he had an actual fucking failed marriage behind him, and not just a drunken mistake.

“We didn’t...” He had no idea how to phrase this. “Colin didn’t come home with me for Christmas.”

That, at least, shocked Katie into silence.

“But you two are ok, right? I mean, you had all the fangirls swooning over your theatre trip...”

“We’re not together anymore. We’re just friends.”

“Just friends...?” Katie’s question was slow, incredulous.

“We realised we made a mistake. It happens. I’d really rather not talk about it.”

Katie looked like she was about to say something else, but Bradley just shook his head, and she let the matter drop. He doubted that she would let it lie so easily once they were back in Cardiff though, and grimaced at the thought.

* * *

Colin for his part had headed back to Ireland as soon as filming had wrapped on his movie two weeks ago. He’d wanted to head to London, but considering he had only ever stayed in Bradley’s flat when he was there, he had been unsure of the appropriateness.

Although the two of them had been texting sporadically since January, Colin knew in his heart that there was something strained and tense between them. He was trying his best to ignore it, but now that it was nearly time to start filming again, he was becoming more and more consumed with the fear that it would affect the dynamic between Merlin and Arthur. With Arthur now being married to Gwen, he really didn’t want that tension to manifest itself on screen, for god only knew what theories the fans would come up with about that one.

He’d been trying, almost unconsciously, to keep his distance from Bradley. Whenever he felt the need to text the other man, or share something with him, he had checked himself, assessed whether it was really necessary, or normal “friend” behaviour. Colin had figured that if he told himself enough times, and firmly enough, that Bradley was only a friend, and would only ever be his friend, then maybe eventually his heart would listen to him.

He was pretty sure he had been entirely unsuccessful in his endeavour. Just the thought of seeing Bradley again, now everything had been laid bare between the two of them, made his pulse race and his hands shake. How the hell was he going to get through 8 months of filming like this?

He supposed that he had to make a decision. Either he tried to maintain his distance from Bradley, and prayed to whatever god that would listen that it wouldn’t be reflected on-screen, or else he could act with Bradley the way he had always acted. All loose hugs and easy smiles, long days spent laughing at ridiculous jokes. Colin knew which option he would prefer, but if he acted so casually with Bradley now, now that he knew that Bradley loved him, and wanted him, he wasn’t sure that his heart, or his brain, would be able to cope with keeping his emotions in check in the long run. And that was something that he desperately needed to be able to do.

Bradley had shown him what was possible, and as much as his head was adamant it was never going to happen, his emotional side just hadn’t got the message yet. Most nights he woke from dreams of being entwined with Bradley, a mess of sweaty limbs and muted moans. It was a fucking disaster, and Colin could only imagine it was going to get worse once Bradley was in close proximity again. Thank god they wouldn’t be sharing a flat this year, Colin was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to cope with bumping into a Bradley who was fresh from the shower... 

The night before travelling back to Cardiff was a long one for Colin. He lay awake in his childhood bed, wrapped up in his Star Wars duvet, thoughts of Bradley and what it had been like to kiss those lips running circles round his head. He had no idea what he was going to do, or how any of this would play out.

When Bradley arrives back in Cardiff, it’s raining. Not much of a surprise, it is Wales after all, but it seems to set the tone for the foreboding lurking in his stomach. He’s scared. Scared of how Colin will treat him, scared of how he’ll treat Colin. Scared that anyone else will notice something’s amiss. He ignores the texts he’s received from Tom telling him they’re all off down the pub. Although he’s certain that Colin would not be joining them, he’s still unprepared to face the raucous mob that is his knights. Not that he doesn’t love them in his own way, and it isn’t that he doesn’t want to see them. He just needs this night alone, to acclimatise to Cardiff, and mentally prepare himself for the months ahead. He also ignores Eoin’s texts asking him if he’s living in the same building. He’s glad he hadn’t mentioned it yet, he wouldn’t be able to duck out so easily if his friends came knocking on his door.

Colin similarly, sits alone in his new flat. He’s not in the same building as Bradley, assuming that he and Eoin would be rooming together there again. He’d wanted to maintain some sort of distance between them in the evenings, since there would be no chance of that on set. He’d unpacked quickly, trying to make the flat seem more like his own space.

He can’t help but glance at the bed, and think what Bradley’s old red blanket would look like lying there. Sighing to himself, he gets ready for bed, even though it’s only 10pm. They don’t need to be anywhere until 9am tomorrow, a small concession the directors have made to help them get back into the swing of things. They’re only doing a read-through of the first script, so no one needs to get there early and spend hours in make-up. 

Colin’s waiting outside his building by the time the minibus arrives to pick him up in the morning. He knows some of the cast drive to the studio when they’re in Wales, preferring the freedom it allows them. He has to admit that being picked up in a minibus feels a little like he’s still in school, but considering he’s never learnt how to drive, he doesn’t really have much choice.

There’s no one else inside, and Colin assumes this is because he lives the furthest out from the studio. Deliberate on his part, to give him more excuse to skip on nights out. If he doesn’t live near the rest of the cast he won’t be able to share a taxi back late at night, giving him an easy excuse to duck out early, or not to go out at all.

Bradley oversleeps in the morning, and has to skip his morning run in order to be ready on time. It leaves him feeling anxious and restless; the exercise was meant to burn off the nervous energy he felt at having to be near Colin again. Missing the run has only intensified the feeling, rather than having solved it. By the time he makes it outside the building, Eoin and Tom are already there, joking about on the pavement, pretending to push each other into the path of any oncoming buses. Bradley just rolls his eyes before greeting them, and they immediately envelop him in a massive man hug. No awkwardness, no tension. It feels good to be back.

“Bradley! Mate, I didn’t know you were living here! Aren’t you sharing with Colin?”

“Yeah, thought the building was a pretty good location. But no, living by myself. Sort of looking forward to having some quiet time in the evenings actually. It’s a hard life being the king of Camelot...” He laughs at his own statement, and Eoin and Tom join in.

“No chance of that!” Jokes Tom, slapping him on the back. “As soon as we know what flat you’re in, there’ll be no leaving you alone!”

Bradley groaned, putting on a mock-serious expression. “Err actually, I think the building down the road might have some empty flats to rent....”

The three of them are still laughing when the minibus pulls up. Colin is already in there, as Bradley suspected, and so are Angel and Katie. He looks distinctly uncomfortable, and Bradley is suddenly sure that they have been grilling him about their “marriage”. Bradley cringes in sympathy and shoots them both a dark look as he gets inside, praying to god that they get the message that the topic is completely out of bounds, at the very least when other people are within earshot. They seem to get the hint, and the ensuing journey is filled with inane chatter about what everyone had been up to since the end of filming last year.

He and Colin exchange nothing more than a terse hello, but nobody else seems to notice anything strange between the two of them. Bradley relaxes back into his seat for the rest of the journey, glad for small mercies at least.

When they arrive at the studio, the production team are already there, along with Ade, who apparently cycled in that morning. Everyone looks faintly shocked at this pronouncement, while he murmurs something about the environment. Bradley is pretty sure his conscience will only last as long as the weather holds; by some miracle it is not raining that morning after the downpour of yesterday.

Bradley and Colin sit at opposite ends of the table for the read-through. The first script is the double-episode opener to the new series, and it’s just as dramatic as the start to the 4th series. Colin is happy that Merlin is really starting to show a darker side, he’d been worried after his killing of Agravaine that they would put bad Merlin back in his box, reduce him to knocking out bandits with pieces of wood again. That wouldn’t be fair, and it wouldn’t be right. Merlin is no longer a young boy, impressed by the city of Camelot, he’s a powerful warlock within his own right, well aware and in control of his own power, and the script should reflect that, even if Arthur still doesn’t know.

The first episodes don’t deal with Aithusa, and Colin is worried about where the scriptwriters are going with that storyline. He doesn’t want his little baby dragon to turn evil, but he’s familiar enough with the two duelling dragons of legend to be wary of the new season. 

At the end of the week Colin and Bradley have barely said two words to each other, and people are starting to notice. It makes Colin nervous; he really doesn’t want anyone to start asking questions. He also knows that this gulf between himself and Bradley is his own fault, and that he’s the only one that can change it, can mend it. He knows Bradley well enough to know that having now been rejected by Colin he won’t make the first move to repair what’s left. With Colin ignoring him, he will think that’s what the Colin wants, what he needs, and he won’t push the issue. The decision that Colin has been avoiding now needs to be made, before the whole relationship between Merlin and Arthur comes tumbling down around them, like the ruins of an old castle. Filming starts in earnest on Monday, and by the time Colin goes to sleep on Sunday night, he knows what he has to do.

Bradley notices the change in Colin immediately. It’s worrying perhaps, how attuned he is to the other man, even after everything they’ve been through. Or maybe it’s because of that. He doesn’t sit next to Colin on the minibus, but that’s his choosing since Bradley gets in second. However, once they’ve been through make-up they stand around waiting on set, drinking cups of scalding tea while the production team run around like headless chickens, trying to get the scene ready, as if they’re surprised the actors are here today. Colin idles up to Bradley, gracing him with a wide smile.

“Bradley,” and if anything his smile gets even wider, “how was your weekend?”

Bradley stares at him hard for a moment, attempting to gauge his sincerity. Once he can see nothing but earnestness in Colin’s face, he starts to answer back. They chat casually on the edge of the set for almost an hour, and there is no trace of Colin’s previous awkwardness around Bradley. The only tension between them is from Bradley; he is confused and wary. Colin has swung so hot and cold with him in the past 6 months that he really has no idea how to take today’s behaviour. 

The next day, Colin is much the same. He brings Bradley a hot sweet tea when he’s sitting in make-up, and stays there talking to him, even though his make-up’s already been done, and Bradley knows that Colin normally uses this time to go over his lines. Colin’s new cordial behaviour lasts throughout the whole week, and people stop looking at them, stop commenting that they don’t seem to be talking as much as they used to. Because now, if anything, they’re spending more time together than ever.

Colin smiles at Bradley, he brings him tea, he sits with him and they talk quietly, he offers him bright smiles in the morning, and hugs at the end of particularly demanding scenes. He touches Bradley, frequently, just casual, friendly touches; a hand on an arm, or a touch to his wrist to catch his attention, a ruffle of his hair from time to time. 

Bradley doesn’t know what’s going on. This new Colin is nothing short of a miracle. It’s like the Colin of last year is back, but not even that. He’s something more now. Compared to this Colin, the Colin of previous years had always been holding something back. He can recognise it now, with the time between then and now. Colin before always kept some sort of distance. He used to read lines by himself while everyone else stood talking, would often sit by himself at lunch reading through his script. He would hold back from touching people, although this didn’t usually extend to Bradley. However, it clearly had to some extent, and Bradley was well aware Colin was touching him far more than he ever had before. It was like the flood barriers had been opened, and while it wasn’t a rushing torrent, a slow but steady stream of Colin seemed to be seeping its way into his life.

More than anything, Bradley is confused. He had thought that Colin’s words, and his rejection of the cufflinks had been a clear enough message. But Colin’s actions now (not to mention the fact that presumably he still had both wedding rings in his possession, Bradley hasn’t forgotten that) seemed to tell a different tale entirely. So what did he trust? Colin’s own words, his adamant refusal of Bradley, or the unspoken connection between them?

He felt like he was in some sort of chic-flick. He’s just not that into you. And any other time, Bradley would have taken that at face value; when someone rejects you, actually tells you face to face that they’re not interested, then they clearly mean that. However, didn’t actions speak louder than words? Colin’s words may have said no, but every action and interaction between them both seemed to scream yes. They were acting like best friends, but they were acting like so much more than that. After Colin had walked out of his flat in January, Bradley had attempted to put his feelings for Colin aside once and for all; to convince himself that he only loved Colin as a friend, and that’s all they would ever be. He’d almost had himself convinced, until Colin started acting like this, started making him believe once again that something more could be possible.

However, there was no way he could broach the subject again between them. He’d already been shot down once, and he wasn’t sure he had it in himself to try again, just so he could be rejected again. Having your heart broken fucking hurt, and Bradley didn’t think he could open himself up to Colin another time, just so he could do the same again. No one was that invincible, not even King Arthur himself.

Two weeks into this new (and improved?) Colin, their “relationship” took another turn. Up until that point their interactions had been familiar, yes, but always within the “friend” category. However, that night the whole younger cast had gone out drinking. No special occasion, they’d just been given an unexpected day off because something had gone wrong with the technical equipment, and it would apparently take at least a day to get it up and running again. After being assured that the production team wouldn’t be taking some of their weekend away to compensate, they had all proceeded to Cardiff to get absolutely shit-faced, safe in the knowledge that they had the whole day ahead of them tomorrow to sleep off any hangovers.

To Bradley’s surprise, Colin joined them. He wasn’t much of a drinker during filming, normally only letting loose at the wrap party, or during hiatus when he had no work commitments (the night of their “wedding” was a perfect example of why Colin really shouldn’t drink). But he sat there downing pints and shots of tequila with the rest of them, pressed leg to leg against Bradley for the whole evening.

By the time Vodka Revs shut Colin, as well as everyone else, could barely stand, let alone walk in a straight line. Bradley is only half as drunk as everyone else. He’d been watching himself all evening, keeping himself in check, knowing that if he let himself get too drunk there’d be no telling what he may say, or do, to Colin. Most likely in full view of everyone. It’s probably a good job he’s able to stand now though, as he attempts to man-handle Colin into a cab. The other man seems reluctant to let go of him, holding onto his wrist tightly, and just repeating his name, as though the meaning may change.

“Bradley. Bradley. Bradley.”

It hurts Bradley to hear his name fall so carelessly from Colin’s lips; a cruel caricature of the relationship between them. Still Colin won’t let him go, and so Bradley climbs into the taxi with him, fully aware that Colin’s flat is in the complete opposite direction to his from the centre of Cardiff. 

“Where to?” the cabbie asks.

“Col, where do you live?”

Colin doesn’t answer, just burrows his nose into the crook of Bradley’s shoulder. Bradley gives his own address instead. Colin may kill him for it in the morning, but he’s not getting anything out of the drunk man now; he’ll just have to sleep in off in Bradley’s spare room tonight, and he can head home in the morning.

The cabbie looks at them both warily, before pulling away from the curb. “If he spews,” he says, nodding at Colin, “it’s a fifty quid fine.”

“Got it.” Bradley replies, sighing.

Getting Colin out of the cab is harder than getting him into it in the first place, and it takes all of Bradley’s patience not to swear at him and leave him there on the side of the road. Eventually they make it up to Bradley’s flat, who thanks his lucky stars that the lift is not currently broken, for once. Once inside the flat he deposits Colin onto the spare bed, pausing to take off his shoes, but leaving him fully clothed. When he returns with a bottle of water, Colin grabs his wrist and makes an attempt to sit up.

“Bradley. Thank you.”

He kisses Bradley softly on the cheek, and then lies back down, seemingly succumbing to sleep immediately. Bradley stares at him for a moment before retreating to his own room. It takes him a long time to drop off to sleep that night.

The next morning, after sharing a breakfast of toast and tea with Bradley, Colin worked his way back to his own flat to sleep the day away in peace. However, before he left, he leaned over to Bradley and kissed him once on the cheek, in perfect imitation of his behaviour last night.

“Thanks for letting me stay here Bradley, I really appreciate it.” There’s nothing in Colin’s face or stature that indicates whether he remembers doing the exact same thing when he was drunk. If this kissing Bradley so casually is on purpose, or just something that felt normal, felt natural.

It takes Bradley a moment to find his voice, and his heart is pounding in his chest like he’s just climbed fifty flights of stairs. “It’s no problem Col, you’re welcome here anytime you know.”

“Yeah, I know.” And with a soft goodbye he lets himself out of Bradley’s flat.

* * *

Colin’s been testing himself. Seeing how much he can take before he breaks. He lets his hands linger on Bradley’s skin, lets his eyes watch him whenever they want to, and lets himself kiss Bradley lightly on the cheek when they are alone. It’s a sad, masochistic game, and it’s going to end in disaster any day now. He’s seen the questioning looks that Bradley throws his way whenever he does something that is too familiar, that is more than just friendly.

And yet still, Colin plays this game with himself, seeing how far he can take it, before he breaks.

* * *

_And you rip it from my hands and you swear it’s all gone, and you rip out all I had just to say that you’ve won._

* * *

A week later, instead of going out with the cast at the end of the week, Bradley announces his plans to stay in; citing exhaustion and lack of sleep. While it’s true that he hasn’t been sleeping well, it’s not much to do with their busy filming schedule, and much more to do with being kept awake by thoughts of Colin, trying to figure out what on earth is going on in his mind, trying to puzzle through this complete change in behaviour. To nobody’s surprise, Colin isn’t going out with the team either, Katie suspects that the idea of alcohol is probably still less than appealing after last week’s heavy night out. 

However, Colin has no plans to spend the night alone, and approaches Bradley later, asking if it’s ok if he comes round to read lines. Bradley acquiesces warily, unsure of what will happen if the two of them are left alone for an extended period of time.

When the minibus is dropping them all off at the end of the day, Bradley opens his mouth to ask Colin if he’s getting out with himself, Tom, and Eoin. No one else knows that they’ve planned to read lines together tonight, but there’s nothing sordid about that, and they’ve done it plenty of times in the past, during previous years. However, before he can even get a single word out, Colin shakes his head sharply, and wishes Bradley a goodnight. Bradley wonders whether Colin is ashamed of him in some way, or his association with him. He finds that he doesn’t have the energy to consider the prospect. Let Colin do what he will, it’s far too much effort to try to understand the other man’s every mood. 

An hour later, Colin is at his door, chinese takeaway in hand. Bradley can tell he’s had a shower, and for a fleeting moment he imagines running his fingers through Colin’s newly-washed hair, and breathing in the fresh clean scent of him.

For the next couple of hours they sit facing each other on the sofa, running through the scripts for the next couple of episodes. The atmosphere between them is relaxed, however the tense undercurrent between them is still flowing slowly, ever threatening to unleash into a mighty torrent. By 11pm the scripts have been completely discarded, and both the boys are sprawled out on the sofa, watching mindless night time television, neither of them caring enough to find the remote and change the channel. Colin’s fingers are resting perilously close to Bradley’s, and every so often they stretch out and brush against Bradley’s. He longs to reach out and takes Colin’s hand within his own, but he doesn’t dare.

By midnight they are nodding off on the sofa, although both are reluctant to move. There is a soft familiarity between them in this moment, something that has been sorely missing for months, and neither wants to break that. Colin shifts slightly, his head lolling down onto Bradley’s shoulder, and it takes him a moment to realise that Colin is asleep. He doesn’t move for nearly an hour, just enjoying the peace and comfort of having Colin sleep soundly resting against him. As he stares over the top of Colin’s head, out the window into the dark night, and breathes in the scent of his hair as he wanted to do earlier in the evening, Bradley is struck by just how much he loves the man next to him. It is nothing flashy, nothing grand, just an absolute certainty that here sleeps the only man that Bradley has ever loved, and is likely to ever love.

This revelation scares him. He still doesn’t know where he stands with Colin, and although they seem to have grown closer, and more comfortable with each other, in recent weeks, Bradley isn’t sure what it all means. Apart from the chaste kisses on the cheek, Colin has shown no indication that he is interested in Bradley as anything more than a friend, and Bradley knows better than to question Colin’s word again. He said there would never be anything between them, and so Bradley needed to try to accept that. But goddamn that was hard with Colin’s heat bleeding into his own as they sat there on the sofa together.

Bradley stirs slightly, the movement arousing Colin from his slumber. For a moment, Colin tries to snuggle closer into the warmth at his side, nosing at the exposed skin of Bradley’s neck, and he shivers in response. This reaction jars Colin into wakefulness, and he has the good sense to look abashed. Although Bradley is burning with questions, he gives voice to none of them, instead only bidding Colin a good night, and retreating to his own bedroom. He watches the door to his room for over an hour, but it never opens, and Colin doesn’t appear.

He endures two more late night line reading sessions, both times ending in Colin staying over in his spare room. Bradley is not sure whether to regret opting for a flat with an extra room or not. Those nights pass by in slow, sleepless torture, and Bradley wakes in the mornings feeling more exhausted than he ever has after one of Arthur’s fight scenes.

By some miracle, it’s Bradley who breaks first. Nothing spectacular, he just takes Colin aside one day after the end of filming, tells him they need to talk. Colin only nods before walking away, and that evening, after being dropped at his own flat (god forbid anyone else should know that they’re meeting, Bradley thinks bitterly), he calls for a taxi to take him to Bradley’s.

Bradley opens the door to Colin without a word of greeting, and gestures to the sofa.

“You want a beer?”

Bradley doesn’t wait for Colin’s response, but grabs him one from the kitchen regardless. He’s already had an extremely generous shot of vodka to calm his nerves, but he needs something to occupy his hands; he doesn’t want to fidget, he’s feeling nervous enough about this talk as it is.

He’s rehearsed what he wants to say a million times before, and yet now the moment is before him, he finds himself unable to articulate even a single word. Colin looks at him curiously, as if he knows what’s coming, but refusing to start the conversation himself, refusing to make it any easier for Bradley.

Colin doesn’t want to have this conversation. He knows the looks Bradley has been giving him these last couple of weeks, he knows what Bradley wants to talk about. And he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to admit to what’s been going on between them, to admit what he’s been doing. He knows it’s wrong, flirting with Bradley, leading him on, encouraging him. And quite frankly, he wasn’t expecting it to last this long. He was expecting himself to break, to beg Bradley to take him, right there, just so he could remember what it felt like from that drunken night, which is just an empty haze in his memories.

But Colin hasn’t broken, hasn’t given in. He feels like all his emotions, his feelings for Bradley, are a black hole inside of him, surrounded by the vastness of space. Slowly, slowly, he’s being drawn closer to the darkness, as it sucks in everything around it, consuming him. But it hasn’t won yet. Colin is unsure whether he should feel proud of himself for resisting this long. To be honest, mostly he just feels like a dick. He has no intention of following through with Bradley, and ultimately he has been testing himself, seeing if he really can resist, if homosexuality really is a choice. He’d say he’s been pretty successful so far, but maybe now is the time to stop and keep his distance once more. He’s won, and the victory party needn’t ruin all his hard work.

Bradley’s palms are sweating, and his heart feels like it’s beating at around a million beats per second, at least. He takes a calming sip of beer, for all that it does, and wished he’d had the foresight to spike the bottle with something stronger.

“So...” Bradley begins.

“Don’t.” Colin is suddenly sure that he doesn’t want Bradley to continue.

Bradley looks at him confused.

“I know what you’re going to say Bradley and just, don’t. No.”

Bradley looks pained for a moment, but he has to carry on, he has to get this out.

“I need to say this.” A moment of silence. “I want to date you.”

It sounds crass, unrefined, to Bradley’s ears, and it isn’t what he planned to say. But at least it’s direct, and there’s no possibility of crossed wires or misunderstandings. However, Colin sighs heavily.

“We’ve been through this, Bradley.”

“Yeah but, the last couple of weeks? The touching, the kissing...”

Bradley lets his statement just hang there between them, painfully aware of how unsure he sounds. 

“That was nothing, that was just...”

But just what it was, Colin has no word to describe.

“Just what, Colin? Just what?” Bradley desperately tries to dampen down the anger seeping into his voice.

“Just nothing Bradley. It meant nothing. We’re just friends”

“Just friends? Friends don’t act like that. It did mean something. And I thought it meant that you were wrong, that you wanted something from me, that you’d make a mistake. That maybe you loved me, after all.” He sounds lost, broken. Fuck. This wasn’t going well. And those last words had slipped out without his permission, he hadn’t wanted Colin to hear that.

“You don’t understand. Yes, we may be friends, but I don’t need you in my life, and I certainly don’t love you. I don’t want to be with you; can’t you get that into your thick skull?” His voice is cold, emotionless. He isn’t even angry.

But really, that’s the final straw for Bradley, and he lets all his anger, frustration, and misery of the last 6 months reply for him. 

“You know what? Fuck this shit. I’m not going to play your games any more. I’m out, I’m done. Leave me the fuck alone, yeah. Arthur and Merlin might be friends now, but we’re certainly not.”

Before Colin has time to formulate a response, Bradley’s gone. And the only thought in his head that night is perhaps he didn’t realise what he had, until he finally lost it.

Within a week everyone on set has noticed the change, although no one can figure out what has caused it. Even Angel and Katie, who know about the disastrous marriage, are flummoxed. The chemistry between Arthur and Merlin is in tatters, and the directors surreptitiously try to film all the scenes where those two aren’t together in the hope that it will resolve itself quickly. 

When it doesn’t, they are called in to talk to the directors. Together, at first, and when both refuse to say a single word, they’re grilled separately, told that they don’t care what’s going on, but for god’s sake fix it. Both make vague promises that they’ll sort it out. Neither says a word to the other. 

People start circling around them on set, as if they are a ticking time bomb that’s set to go off at pretty much any second. And maybe they are. Bradley, for his part, feels completely drained. As if he’s been put through one of those old-fashioned washing mangles, left twisted and squeezed dry on the other side. He doesn’t have the energy to explode.

Colin is... silent. He doesn’t speak, to anybody. As if finally Bradley has robbed him of any words he had left. Colin had never expected Bradley to turn on him like that. He’ll readily admit it; yes he took Bradley’s attention, Bradley’s adoration, for granted. He’d never imagined in a million years that Bradley would ever just stop.

It takes 3 more weeks of awkwardness, lifeless scenes, and silence before Colin comes to Bradley’s in the middle of the night. Although Bradley has noticed the dark circles under Colin’s eyes, the make-up team have been doing a bang-up job of concealing them. Up close, he looks pale and exhausted, like too thin paper stretched across a canvas, blue veins threatening to break through. Despite everything, Bradley can’t help but feel a pang of sadness that Colin is suffering so.

If the visit itself is unexpected, the words out of Colin’s mouth are even more so.

“Colin... It’s three ‘o’ clock in the morning. What do you want?” 

Colin stares at Bradley, eyes wide, before speaking.

“Bradley, I’m sorry.”

The words are so heartfelt, and for a moment Bradley is confused. He doesn’t know what Colin is apologising for, doesn’t connect this visit to all that has gone between them since October. Maybe he can blame the lateness of the hour for the less than articulate response that comes from his mouth.

“Huh?”

“I apologise, Bradley. For the way I have treated you since October, since that night.”

Bradley is gobsmacked, Colin carries on.

“I’m sorry for using you, but also I’m sorry for lying to you.”

“Lying? You’re not...?” Bradley can’t quite bring himself to say the word “gay”; if Colin isn’t, then what the hell was the point of this whole mess in the first place?

“Gay? No, I definitely am.” Colin, chuckles slightly at this, and Bradley is still completely lost.

“I lied when I said I didn’t need you, that I didn’t love you.”

Bradley honestly feels like he’s walked into an alternate universe, that he’s still dreaming, and he’s fast asleep in his bed, not standing in his front room with Colin in the middle of the night. But he’s not impressed.

“Why apologise now?”

Now it’s Colin’s turn to look confused. “Bradley, I’ve been miserable these last couple of weeks, I’ve been miserable without you.”

“You’ve been miserable? Colin, do you have any idea what you’ve done to me? And not just these last couple of weeks, but the last six months.”

Colin has no reply, and can’t quite meet Bradley’s eyes.

“Without trying to sound like too much of a girl, you tore my heart into a thousand tiny pieces, then you ripped it out of my chest and pissed all over it.”

“I know, and I’m sorry.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No, you don’t get to do this to me now, Colin. You actually don’t just get to apologise like that. I mean, fuck. Seriously. Fuck. Colin. No.” He takes a moment to catch his breath, but doesn’t leave long enough for Colin to gather his thoughts and formulate a response. “You say you’ve been miserable without me, but I know you Colin, and for all you play the sweet and innocent card, you love to be wanted. You like it when people like you. And I liked you the most of them all. That’s all you miss. So, no.”

Bradley can’t justify himself anymore. Just no. No, no, no. Colin cannot be doing this to him right now.

“Bradley...” Colin’s voice is a soft plea.

“ _No_ ” But Bradley’s voice breaks, even though he’s trying desperately to keep all his emotions locked deep inside.

“No...” His voice is barely more than a whisper, and he sinks back down onto the sofa behind him, burying his face in his hands.

Colin stands looking on, aghast, not at Bradley’s tears, but for what he’s done to the man in front of him. Colin has been thinking of himself for so long; what this _relationship_ is doing to him, could do to him, and his career, and truthfully, he’s never really considered it from Bradley’s point of view before. Hadn’t even considered coming to Bradley’s flat tonight from the other man’s point of view. In his mind, as far as he’d considered it, Bradley would have welcomed him with open arms. But how could he have been so fucking stupid?

Still now, he’d been making it all about himself. And look at what he’d done. Bradley had almost as much pride as Arthur, and he hated to show weakness. Yet that is what he’d been doing for Colin, time and time again, and Colin had pretty much just pissed all over it, as Bradley had said. What kind of person did that? What kind of person was he? He didn’t know any more.

Tentatively, slowly, he sat down on the sofa next to Bradley, and gently ran his fingers through Bradley’s soft golden hair. Bradley’s breathing hitched slightly, but he gave no other indication that he was even aware of Colin’s presence.

“Bradley, I’m sorry.” He barely breathes the words, but he knows Bradley hears them. He realises now how completely inadequate they are, but they’re all he’s got, and so he keeps repeating them, over and over again, before finally falling silent.

His fingers continue to card slowly through Bradley’s hair, and there is nothing else but stillness between them. Not the stale, suffocating silence of the previous weeks, this is the placid silence of a beautifully calm lake. Colin ventures the only other words that are in his head.

“I love you Bradley. I think I always have done.”

Bradley gives no reaction. Colin’s fingers finally stop, and are replaced by a quick press of Colin’s lips to the crown of Bradley’s head, and one more whispered apology.

He’s almost at the door before Bradley speaks.

“Col...”

Colin turns around to face him, but Bradley doesn’t speak again for so long that Colin thinks that’s all he’s going to say. He’s about to turn to leave again, before Bradley’s voice breaks the silence, still muffled by his hands over his face. He can’t bring himself to look at Colin.

“Why did you take the rings?” It’s the thing that’s been bothering him most for weeks now.

Colin freezes. He doesn’t know if he’s ready to admit why. But, after everything, he guesses he owes Bradley the truth. “Because I wanted to be married to you. You’re the only person I’ve ever been able to imagine that with. That’s why I’m here now.”

At this, Bradley looks Colin in the eye. That wasn’t the answer he was expecting, not from Colin. He looks completely and utterly wrecked. His eyes are bloodshot, and the bags under them rival Colin’s own. Colin feels as though all the air has been sucked out of the room, just from the look Bradley is giving him as he stands up.

Slowly, cautiously, Colin makes his way back across the room, coming to a halt with his feet a mere inch from Bradley’s own bare feet. 

Colin’s hand comes up to trace the light stubble along Bradley’s jaw, who stands as still as stone, barely even breathing.

“I think I’m going to kiss you now, Bradley.”

Still Bradley doesn’t move, and Colin is so unsure. Is this the right thing to do now? Is this even what Bradley wants anymore, after everything Colin’s put him through? But Bradley makes no motion to move away, and so Colin leans closer, and presses his lips gently against Bradley’s.

Bradley reacts almost instantaneously, bringing his arms up so rest lightly on Colin’s hips, lips moving softly in response.

They stay like that, kissing like two teenagers experiencing their first kiss, for far longer than two grown men should admit to. It is Bradley who breaks away first, and the look on his face floors Colin, who can read it like an open book. Bradley is fully expecting Colin to take back everything he’s just said and reject him once again. Colin’s heart very nearly breaks in two.

“Bradley.” He doesn’t know how to make this right. “I want this. I want you. I can’t promise I’ll be perfect, but I promise to try.”

“Don’t make promises you don’t plan on keeping.”

“I mean to keep this one. I think it’s about time I faced up to reality, don’t you?”

Bradley only offers him a wry smile in return.

“Just, let’s keep it to ourselves for the time being? It’s going to take me some time to adjust...”

“Just some time?”

Colin knows what Bradley is asking; does he expect them to hide forever?

“Just some time,” he affirms.

Bradley kisses him at this, before telling Colin in no uncertain terms that it’s arse end ‘o’ clock, and they should be in bed. Colin cocks an eyebrow at this comment, and Bradley rolls his eyes.

“To sleep Colin, dear god.” But he’s laughing, and Colin loves the sound.

They fall asleep wrapped up in each other’s arms, tangled so close together that it’s hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. Colin feels as though all his frayed edges are being smoothed out by Bradley’s warm arms around him, and Bradley is lulled to sleep breathing in the soft scent of Colin’s skin. They sleep for an hour before Bradley’s alarm goes off, but it’s the most satisfying sleep either has had in weeks.

The next morning, Colin’s phone rings as he steps out of the shower. It’s Ben, the sound guy who also drives the minibus, picking them up from all around Cardiff and its environs.

“Hello?”

“Colin mate, I’m outside. Are you still in bed?”

Colin had completely forgotten that Ben would be waiting outside his flat, waiting to pick him up, just as he has done every other morning of filming so far. The other nights that he stayed over at Bradley’s flat, sleeping in the spare room, had always been at the weekends, when there had been no filming the next day.

“Christ, I’m so sorry. I’m at Bradley’s.”

“Bradley’s...?”

It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that _everyone_ on set knew that there was bad blood between Colin and Bradley at the moment, and the disbelief is excruciatingly evident in Ben’s voice.

“Yeah, was here late last night reading lines, ended up crashing on the sofa. Completely forgot you’d be picking me up this morning, I’m so sorry mate.”

“Yeah... No worries” Ben still sounded slightly confused. “I’ll just pick you up there, then?”

“Yeah that would be great, thanks Ben.”

“Alright. See you in twenty.” And he hangs up.

Colin relays the conversation to Bradley, who grimaces slightly. He’s worried of what Colin’s reaction will be if there’s any gossip.

However, Colin is apparently being unusually perceptive this morning, and picks up on Bradley’s discomfort immediately, accurately discerning the cause. He steps closer to Bradley, and takes both of his hands in his own.

“It’s ok. I don’t mind. I’ve stayed over at yours a million times before, all completely innocently. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

Bradley sighs. “Yeah, but that wasn’t when everyone _knew_ we weren’t on speaking terms.” He doesn’t trust Colin’s resolve to stand firm under everyone’s scrutiny.

Something painful squirms inside Colin’s chest. Bradley obviously doesn’t trust him, despite his reassurances of the previous night. There are a lot of bridges that still need mending, or building, between them now.

He reaches up at hand to stroke Bradley’s still unshaven jaw, fingertips rubbing across the stubble he finds there. “Let them think what they want. We know what’s true.” And he leans in and kisses Bradley lightly. Bradley lifts his arms up to embrace Colin, nose rubbing at the sensitive skin under Colin’s ear. Bradley’s breath leaves him in one loud exhale, ghosting along Colin’s neck; the tension leaves his shoulders at the same moment. One small victory, Colin thinks.

Bradley’s relaxed demeanour lasts for all of ten minutes, until the minibus pulls up outside his building. They’ve already been stared at by Eoin and Tom, who had perhaps wisely decided not to say anything, as if there are frightened of disturbing the fragile peace that seems to have sprung up between Colin and Bradley overnight. The girls, on the other hand, have no such compunction. 

The stare outright at the two men for several minutes, elbowing each other and speaking in hurried whispers before Katie speaks up.

“You boys alright there?”

Colin and Bradley stare at each other, and Colin can sense Bradley’s reluctance to speak as if it is a physical wall surrounding the other man. He longs to reach out and grab Bradley’s hand, but his bravery doesn’t stretch that far yet. He turns round to face the girls, and he can tell that the attention of everyone else in the minibus is immediately on him.

“Yeah, not bad.”

The girls clearly expected something more than Colin’s casual reply, but he refuses to make it easy for them. If they want to know, they’ll have to actually ask.

“Good night’s sleep?”

“Was alright.”

They look visibly frustrated now, and Colin can see Eoin fidgeting about in his seat from the corner of his eye, clearly wanting to join in this non-conversation and demand some answers. Angel takes over instead.

“And you stayed at Bradley’s last night?”

“Yup. Slept on the sofa.” Colin sounds positively cheerful, which is such a distinct contrast from the last couple of weeks that everyone is momentarily lost for words, even Bradley, who knows that this statement is a complete lie. 

“Why?”

“Why what, Angel?” He’s being deliberately obtuse, and loving every second of it. He can tell Bradley is now lowering his guard slightly, even though the questioning is still ongoing. Colin is handling their curiosity superbly, and doesn’t seem in danger of crumbling under their interrogation, and retreating back into himself, as Bradley had feared.

“Why did you stay over at Bradley’s?”

“Do I need a reason? I’ve done it countless times before.”

Angel’s mouth gapes open for a second. The bus is painfully silent.

“Yes, but before you... You weren’t...” But it seems as though she can’t quite articulate what Colin was or wasn’t.

Bradley takes pity on her.

“Colin came round yesterday evening to read lines. It wasn’t until he started nodding off on the sofa that we realised how late it was. So he stayed over.”

No one really has anything to say to that, and the rest of the journey passes in awkward silence, no one willing to ask the question which is on the tip of everyone’s tongues; why were Colin and Bradley suddenly back on speaking terms? Or more accurately, just what the hell was going on here?

The same dumbfounded shock is mirrored by just about everybody on set. And those not displaying obvious confusion were merely just better at hiding their emotions.

The directors have a brief meeting at lunch time. They’re under no illusion that it was their talks with the two actors that had caused this amicability, but they’re stumped as to the actual reason. They decide not to draw attention to the change, decide to leave Bradley and Colin to their own devices. It’s not like interfering before made any difference.

That weekend finds Colin at Bradley’s flat again, although once again no one knows he’s there. He went back to his own flat at the end of filming, stopping there only to change and pack a bag. He heads straight to Bradley’s and doesn’t leave again until Monday morning. They spend the weekend talking quietly to each other, filling up on all the conversations they have missed in the last couple of months. They spend the nights exploring each other’s bodies. Colin learns what it’s like to feel another man’s body under his tongue, the soft yet firm contours of Bradley’s muscles, and how they press up again his own.

He remembers to text Ben on Sunday night, telling him not to pick him up at his flat in the morning. The only comment anybody else makes is Katie, as they clamber inside the bus the next day.

“Lines?”

“Lines,” Bradley nods.

Nobody seems entirely convinced, perhaps sensing the casual insincerity in Bradley’s tone, but nothing else is said.

Weeks pass, and May blends into June. Filming starts up again in France. It’s not easy for Colin to open up to Bradley, to let go of all his fears, but he’s trying. Bradley knows this. At times he treats Colin as though he is a frightened deer, likely to bolt at any moment, when it all becomes too much. However, day after day Bradley awakes and Colin is still there, and he starts to relax, almost imperceptibly at first, finally starting to believe that maybe this is it, maybe it’s the real thing after all.

No one comments again on the renewed friendship between Colin and Bradley, nor do they mention that brief dark time when there was nothing but anger and silence between the two men. No one knows what caused the rift to begin with, or its repair. No one suspects kissing and cuddles, and a fragile Colin holding the broken fragments of Bradley’s heart close to his chest, in the hope that he can somehow mend it.

They take it slow. So slow it’s almost glacial. But it goes like this.

**June**  
They finally have sex for the first time (that drunken night most definitely does not count). Up until now, their relationship has been defined by heated kisses, hand jobs and blow jobs. Their first night properly together is characterised by lots of lube and Colin’s racing heart threatening to beat right out of his chest as he presses breathless kisses into Bradley’s skin. 

**July**  
If anybody notices the frequency with which the boys sleep in each other’s rooms, nobody mentions it.

**August**  
When filming breaks for two weeks in the summer, they spend the time together in London, just doing stupid stuff and not worrying about anyone or anything else. They go to the zoo, where Colin tells Bradley he looks just like one of the gorillas. Bradley tells him not be be ridiculous, Colin, he’s clearly a lion, the king of the jungle. Bradley tells Colin he looks like one of the penguins. Colin secretly thinks they’re quite cute.

At one point Colin leaves in the middle of the night, after a tense discussion with Bradley about telling their friends. His argument had been that the other cast members clearly already knew, although they were choosing not to mention it. Bradley at least has some friends (not to mention his mother), who he’d quite like to tell, before they found it out on the internet instead.

Colin returns the next morning, looking wrung out and exhausted. Bradley is sat on the sofa when he walks in, and before he can get up or even speak, Colin is walking over, kicking off his shoes, before curling up against Bradley’s side. Bradley lifts his arm up to rest lightly across Colin’s shoulder, and he just sits there listening to Colin’s breathing soften as he falls asleep, not paying the slightest bit of attention to the football game being shown on the tv.

When Colin awakens several hours later, he only says two words to Bradley.

“Yeah, ok.”

But they’re enough.

**September**  
Promotion kicks up a gear in preparation for the start on the new series on tv. Bradley thinks perhaps the fans have noticed the new dynamic between the two main actors, but staunchly refuses to look online. He doesn’t need to know what people are saying about him. Colin isn’t so sanguine, and by the end of September, he takes to googling himself and Bradley, looking for something, anything, that indicates they are more than just good friends. 

He finds several photos of them on set in Pierrefonds from during the summer months, the two of them sitting closer together than is perhaps platonic. However, there’s nothing of them holding hands, or kissing, although Colin knows for certain that they did both these things on set, especially in the last month or so. He still feels anxious, like there’s a tightly coiled spring inside him, threatening to burst open and tear him apart. He presses himself tightly against Bradley that evening, bodies aligned from head to toe. Bradley holds him closely in return, not knowing what is wrong, but offering comfort all the same.

**October**  
Now that filming of the final series has finished, Bradley and Colin spend more nights curled up together on the sofa, watching bad movies, and just enjoying the warmth of each other’s company. They make no pretence of the spare room being occupied; Bradley and Colin share the same room now, the same bed. Their friends all know that they are together, but nobody makes a big deal about it. It seems as though everyone is wary of what the fans would make of it if they found out. For himself, Colin is grateful. Sometimes he wonders if it bothers Bradley, if he wants to hold Colin’s hand in public. But in terms of acting jobs it wouldn’t be good for either of them, and Colin hopes that Bradley knows that he still loves him, even though they’re still hiding it.

**November**  
The year anniversary of their wedding passes. They don’t mention it, but they mark the occasion by getting blindingly drunk. They don’t accidently get married again. The next morning Colin opens the small box where he keeps the rings, and just stares at them for a long time. He only stops when he hears the front door slam, indicating Bradley’s return from the supermarket for hangover breakfast supplies. He doesn’t mention anything to Bradley.

**December**  
They really do spend their first Christmas together, like they had been planning to pretend to the previous year. They stay in London together, and are rewarded with a beautiful snowy morning on Christmas day. They ignore the presents under the tree, and wrap up in coats and scarves to go build snowmen in Regent’s Park. There are several families already there, who have clearly had the same idea, but they still manage to find a large enough patch of untouched snow to build an impressive looking snowman. They name him Simon, and Bradley tries to clothe him in Colin’s scarf, who has to wrestle it back off him. They return to their flat with soggy jeans and red noses, but all the happier for it. 

**January**  
Colin heads back to Ireland to see his family. He hasn’t mentioned Bradley to them yet, although he has told his mother that he’s seeing someone. The lack of further details has had his mother speculating for months; she knows her son better than he imagines. The announcement isn’t a surprise, but it is clear that something has changed within their family now, and some things just won’t be the same again. 

Colin returns to Bradley after only two days in Ireland. Bradley holds him as Colin cries into his shoulder. He doesn’t know what he can do to make this better, doesn’t think there’s anything he can do which will make any difference. Later that evening he tries to show Colin how much he loves him with actions, rather than words. He doesn’t know if it works.

**February**  
Colin spends the month performing in a play off the West End. Bradley goes to see it five times, and every time he falls in love with Colin a little bit more. He knows that some fans see him there, suspects that they will be speculating over why he attends more than once. He finds that he doesn’t care. He mentions it to Colin. It turns out he can’t find it within himself to care either. He finds out that Colin is more fascinated by how Bradley can sit through the same play so many times. Bradley tells him it’s because he’s in love with one of the main actors. Colin can only smile in return.

**March**  
They start filming on the Merlin movie, which takes off several months after the end of season 5. Arthur has finally accepted Merlin’s magic, and he’s even started to get used to it, but they’ll need all of Arthur’s strength and Merlin’s magical cunning in order to defeat Mordred, without Arthur’s prophesised death coming to pass...

**April**  
Easter passes in a slow breeze of spring days. They spend Easter weekend in Devon, where Bradley’s mother welcomes them both with open arms. The darkness of winter recedes, and so does the darkness inside Colin’s own mind. For what is perhaps the first time in his life he is conscious of the fact that he is happy, content. He knows this is due to Bradley, but he still doesn’t know how to vocalise those feelings. He talks to his mother on the phone; their conversation is stilted, but at least it’s something.

**May**  
In the middle of May, a year to the day after Colin showed up at Bradley’s flat in the middle of the night, Colin goes to the small wooden box where he keeps his and Bradley’s wedding rings. Bradley’s out for the day, off playing in a charity football match. Colin begged off watching, saying he had something else he needed to do. By the time Bradley comes home, Colin has cooked dinner for him, but if Bradley remembers the significance of the date, he doesn’t mention it. 

That night in bed, as they both lie there, happy and sated in each other’s arms, Colin reaches across Bradley, and takes something out of the bedside drawer. Bradley is about to make a quip about not being ready for another round just yet, before the remark dies on his lips at the serious look on Colin’s face. Colin sits up, in front of Bradley, before slowly opening his palm, to reveal the two golden rings within.

Bradley looks up at Colin, eyes wide, and barely dares to breathe.

“Bradley. Will you marry me?”

There is, obviously, only one answer worth giving. And Bradley finds that he is up for round two, after all.

The fans find out eventually, of course they do. But in the end, Colin finds that he doesn’t really mind, as long as he has Bradley by his side. Bradley thinks that maybe, just maybe, all the turmoil and heartbreak, it was all worth it in the end.

But that’s all to come. For the moment they just sit there, holding hands in the corner of the set, waiting for the world to notice.

**The End**

**Author's Note:**

> Probably still full of spelling mistakes, so I apologise. Also, definitely going to hell. I apologise to Bradley/Colin profusely, this is by no means an attempt to make an accurate comment on the state of their love lives. Obviously.


End file.
